


A Doctor in Union

by whatsanapocalae



Category: The Evil Within (Video Game)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Anal Fingering, Asphyxiation, Blood and Gore, Brainwashing, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Drug Addiction, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Romance, Eye Gouging, Eye Trauma, F/M, Flashbacks, Frottage, Gore, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Long, M/M, Masturbation, Medical Trauma, Minor Character Death, Night Terrors, Non-Consensual Bondage, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Non-Consensual Oral Sex, Oral Sex, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), Panic Attacks, Past Torture, Pining, Polyamory, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychopathology & Sociopathy, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Torture, Triggers, Vomiting, Voyeurism, Wet Dream, referenced joseph oda/sebastian castellanos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-06-07 01:12:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 24
Words: 78,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15207557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatsanapocalae/pseuds/whatsanapocalae
Summary: Sebastian's been kidnapped by Mobius, sent into a world of his daughters creating in order to find her. Once he's there, he finds it's like Beacon, all over again, but this time a psychopathic photgrapher has his hands on Lily. Stefano wants her for his art, Theodore wants her for her power, Myra wants her to be safe, and then there's another, a doctor of sorts, who may be the worst audience an artist could ask for.A retelling of The Evil Within 2, in an attempt for Sebastian and Stefano to work together towards saving Lily and escapign Union. A new character has been added in order to push them together, but he has his own intentions for Stefano.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The first few chapters will be very close to the original story, from Sebastian's side. From Stefano's POV, it will be very obvious that something is different.

The door opened, one of the ornate double doors that this place seemed to favor, and a stranger, a union citizen, by the looks of it, half ran, and half fell into the room. He didn’t see Sebastian. He was too distracted, watching what was behind him in horror. A monster, perhaps? 

There was a flash of smoke and Sebastian darted behind on of the leather couches. He peered around the side to see a man, another stranger, step forward from the smoke. He slid a knife up through the first man’s chest, up from the heart and through the shoulder, right next to the throat, in a dramatic flair, using his momentum to keep himself out of the frame of his camera. The flash went off and the man, in his death throes, was trapped, a blue tinged cube, the focal point, catching him.   
Sebastian hadn’t realized that he was leaning against a canvas, sitting on the side of the couch, but now it made its decision to fall. 

“What was that?” the photographer asked, turning to see the fallen frame. His voice was deep, velvety, and, worse of all, completely calm. He didn’t get anxiety or fear from killing, he was used to it. 

Sebastian grit his teeth, “Shit!” he couldn’t be caught, he couldn’t be photographed. He slinked around the back of the couch, and up the opposite side, trying to keep an eye on the photographer. He wasn’t very stealthy, keeping his head up just enough that he could see the man, but he didn’t seem to notice Sebastian. His hair on that side was longer and it covered his face. Sebastian wondered, for a moment, if he was blind, but that didn’t make sense, having a blind photographer. 

The man stepped into a flash of smoke, going a few steps before he stepped out of another plume. He looked around the couch, but Sebastian was already to the next of them, closer to the man who was reliving his death in one of those looping frames. 

The photographer was nonchalant as he didn’t find Sebastian, just shrugged, and continued on to the doors that Sebastian had come through, leaving him alone with his curiosity. 

“Who the hell was that?” Sebastian wondered, only once the doors had shut once more. 

\----------------

It was not his best photograph, a bit blurry in spaces, primarily where the man’s arms had flailed, and one of them was covering the elegant bouquet of blood that was spurting so effectively from his crisp white shirt. 

That was the joy of Union, of his power here. He could go back, take it again, from a better angle. He could bring in lights and experiment. It had been a while since he’d done anything experimental. Still, the concept was there, and it pleased him to see the man’s expression. That was the true beauty of his work, of his portraits, the emotion played out so honestly on their faces. Yes, this one would be good for his series, just after a bit of tweaking. 

\----------------

There were women’s bodies everywhere. Sebastian felt himself, sick to his stomach, pushing past them. There was nothing he could do for them, they were already dead, hanging from the ceiling I white sheets, like angels on a tree. He wanted to cut them down, investigate, find out who did this, but he had a suspicion already and he didn’t have the time to look for clues, no forensic crew to back him up anyway. 

He’d thought that this room was a dead end, but when he turned it was a dead end again. The door he’d come through was gone and he was sure that the corpses had moved, changed position. He put a hand to his head, this place was chaos. It was cleaner than Beacon, but that didn’t mean it was any better. 

He turned again, and the women were in straight lines, swinging lightly, as if to accentuate the blood red eye drawn on the wall. And again, and there was a door behind him, on the opposite wall. 

He raced towards it, trying not to blink, trying not to look away. He knew that if he took his eyes off of it, it would be gone before he could escape. He couldn’t stay in this room. The corpses made a direct path to where he needed to go. 

He grabbed the door and flung it open, but he couldn’t go through. There was someone standing there, in his way. The photographer, waiting, camera at the ready, already had his shot lined up. Sebastian could practically feel the stranger’s excitement, the smile behind the lens, as he pressed down. 

With a flash Sebastian was blinded, the arm he unconsciously raised to defend himself nowhere near enough. 

“Oh shit!” he grits out as his vision returned to him. The door, and the photographer beyond it, were gone. Instead there was a wall, dirtier than he remembered, stood before him, that drawing of an eye in full detail. It was a not-so-subtle reminder that he was being watched. 

The wall on the other side was a mirror and there was something on it. He went to it, took the photograph off of it. It was of him. It was taken with the flash, not some candid from before. It looked terrifyingly posed, set, all of the lighting perfect, unnatural. Sebastian was a lousy photographer, he could barely take a family photo in focus, but he knew that this lighting wasn’t the kind that came from a flash. 

How long had he been here? The photograph unsettled him, much more deeply than it should have. 

The laughter coming from behind only unsettled him further. 

\------------------

Someone was in his space, this building that he had designed, conjured, built out of himself and his memories. It was a mess, all of the floors jumbled together, the same thing over and over again, but it was the closest to home that he could remember. 

He had become privy that there was someone sneaking around when he was photographing that fool, but he had not been able to catch them. There was another man, a much more interesting one, trying to find his way through the maze of this space. And Stefano had been kind, had given him clues of red silk to lead him through, to take him to the most interesting of places. 

The man was a wild, trapped thing, panic and fear radiating from him. Even from such a distance Stefano could feel the heat of it, the unsettled nerves like electricity, the flames of desire to make it out, to survive, to pursue. The man was a predator, it was obvious in his grizzled nature and the scent of adrenaline that sat on his shoulders. But here, he was prey, and he had no idea that Stefano was behind him, leading him into a trap. 

Oh, how he wished he could be there, to photograph every moment of this man’s suffering. He wasn’t like the Union citizens, he had a mind still, ambitions of his own, and he moved like he had a mission in this looping place, where everything was the same, down to the weather, forever. 

The man didn’t know Stefano was watching, but someone did. He could feel it, that nagging presence. He couldn’t see what was stalking him though, was safe from it, for the moment. When it came time, he would introduce his own hunter to Obscura. 

\--------------

His prey though, had made into one of the back rooms, so close to the trigger of his trap. Stefano stepped from his vantage point to a point nearby, focusing and readying his camera. It wouldn’t be all of it, he couldn’t stay and watch the man get torn apart, for his creation, as beautiful as she was, did not like to be watched while she worked. He had learned that time and time again, but it was still tempting to learn again. 

The door opened, and he took his shot. 

The stranger was frozen, as if in the moment of death but no, Stefano couldn’t kill him, not yet. He was interesting, more interesting than any of his other subjects lately, and he wasn’t ready, not yet. This one, he wanted to prepare, get that fear heightened to new heights. Death was enough for some, but this one, this one feared something much worse. 

The photograph wasn’t exciting, wasn’t much of anything really, just a fragment of the true terror that he could capture, wring out of this man. He left it there, so the stranger would see it, perhaps get some bit of semblance as to Stefano’s true purpose here.


	2. Chapter 2

He was being chased by that horrible thing, that laughing thing, that thing that was pretending to be a woman but was not. It was not. It had been once, he was sure of it. The way it moved, it’s speed, it reminded him of that thing that Ruvik had made out of his sister’s corpse and memory. But it wasn’t, just the long hair and the speed was all they had in common. 

He ran, not paying attention. He was certain, at one point, that he was in a hospital, but that wasn’t the case. He was in the photographer’s domain. This was something that that man had made, he was sure of it. He darted through another set of doors, not bothering to close them behind him. It didn’t matter, she would just cut through. 

The room was red, photographs hanging where they needed to dry. It wasn’t a dark room though, even though it looked like one, too bright and too long, a narrow hallway with a door at the end, a door that Sebastian had to get through, now. 

The door was open, allowing more light in and there was a silhouette before it, beautifully backlit. Sebastian ran towards it. The figure looked human enough, hunched over and fiddling with something in their hands. They didn’t seem to notice the danger cackling and running towards them. 

Then the figure shifted and was laughing under their breath. Something was wrong. He threw one arm out and that knife, still stained with the Union citizens blood, flew towards Sebastian. There was no time, no space for him to change his trajectory. The knife went deep into his chest and he groaned, not the worst pain he’d ever been in, not even close to the first time he’d been in STEM, but it was enough to knock him off balance. He fell to the linoleum, groaning as he tried to catch himself, so the knife wouldn’t be twisted in his skin. 

He barely noticed the photographer turn away into another puff of smoke. 

\--------------------

Ah, and there she was, all power and joy. He’d never made something with so much unbridled joy before! He truly did enjoy her, her beauty, her lust for the lives she took, her laugh, everything about her. He wasn’t used to placing so much machinery within a person, but in this case, it was all for the best. 

And his prey, now there was a bit more fear, there was adrenaline pouring through him, there was sweat running down his shoulders and through his beard. He wanted to photograph it so terribly. 

But no, the fear of death wasn’t what drove this man. There was something else. This man, his expression wasn’t as fearful as Stefano had thought, but confusion as to what was happening and a terrible determination. 

He’d have to wait, learn what caused that fear, and use it for the best work he could create. 

He took out his knife. He would be kind, this once, and give his prey something to fend for himself with. 

There was someone else there, behind the man, behind his beautiful Guardian. There was a man. Stefano’s eye went to him in a quick glance but then his mouth went dry, anxiety snaking up his pulse points, knotting in his throat. His eye throbbed behind his hair. That man, he had no reason to be there, he had no reason to be in this place. That man should not exist in this world. 

Stefano threw the knife in a single motion, trying not to let the fear cripple him, as his feet tried to run, as his sweat pooled in his temples, as everything within him told him to bolt. He, instead, turned on his heel calmly, continued his path through the door, and out into Union. He was sure he’d hit his prey, but he hadn’t looked.

The moment he was out in the city he stepped forward and forward and forward, getting as far from his space as he could. He didn’t want that hunter to find him. 

Only once he was far out, at the base of the candles that led to his employer, did he fall to his knees, dry heaving in his panic. He didn’t want him to be there. He’d thought he was safe here. 

It was one of the reasons he’d ever listened to Theodore, to be free of that horrible man. 

While part of him thrummed with an inappropriate need, a lust that the rest of him revolted against, he wanted to curl up and become nothing. He wanted to bleed into the sidewalk, to become so small that not even a scalpel could cut him free. 

He called to Obscura, who could protect him from any manner of horror, and found his voice a shrill, pitiful thing. She wouldn’t care and she didn’t, coming to him with an evocative moan, allowing him to wrap his arms around her long and thick neck, before she wrapped her arms around him in response, lifting him up, and carrying him off to the theatre. 

\---------------------

Lily. She’d been here, she’d really been here. This was the first time he’d seen her, seen any hint that she’d actually been here, since arriving in STEM. Kidman hadn’t been tricking him, not about this. 

And now Sebastian was following her, following a trail of her memories through one of the hundreds of abandoned buildings in STEM. 

She’d gone into an office, locked the door, and watched the shadows of men’s heels through a vent in the floor. He saw her terror, could feel it in himself, as she watched the stranger try to force his way through the door. Tears sprang to his eyes at the thought of it, of his little girl so terrified. 

He was banging on the door, trying to force his way in to get her. Both Sebastian and Lily knew that she didn’t have long before he succeeded. She turned and found a window, blissfully open. She was a smart girl, resourceful. Sebastian couldn’t get up there without breaking the shelves that led to it, and neither could the   
photographer. Neither of them would be able to fit through the window either. 

Wiping his eyes, feeling pride grow in their place, Sebastian went around the building, to pick up on the other side of the window. 

\--------------------------

He had to capture the Core. It was what he’d been sent here to do, after all. An easy task, in it’s ordering but much harder once he had found himself inside of Union. For the Core was not a singular thing, but the entirety of this place and he could feel it’s power everywhere. 

That was why he had waited, in truth. When the trouble started, as Theodore had suspected, then he felt the power of the Core falter, leave the everywhere and become a singular entity. He had tapped into it so diligently, it had been such an important aspect of his work that, when it was gone and he was left with nothing more that the skills he’d taught himself in this place, it was as if he’d been drugged, made sluggish and weary, without pain and without anything else. 

He had to find the Core. And he had to do it with someone watching him. 

He had imagined the Core to be an item, an unmoving shape, but instead it was a beam of light, traveling through the world, running and climbing and shaping itself. He followed it from a distance at first, unsure of what he was seeing, but once it bent and shrank, changing into the size of a child, he knew that it was something that he could gather. 

He didn’t really have to follow it, didn’t have to search, he could feel it. It was like music, invisible but with waves of force that could make you feel however it wanted, and you could always find its source if you looked hard enough. 

At the moment it was racing, it’s light fading as its form became that of a young girl, towards a gas station. He didn’t want to think of it as child’s play, that would be cliché and crass. He followed her on foot, not bothering to step forward to be just before her. 

Oh, she was terrified. She had no idea what he had planned for her. It made his hands itch beneath his gloves, made his urges more primal, made his heart sing and his mind race. He had to do something. He had to create. 

He was being watched. At that moment, he didn’t truly mind. No, if he was going to be watched he would perform. Oh, he would make it into such a wonderful show!


	3. Chapter 3

She had been running around the lumber yard, almost on the opposite side of town. She’d been followed so far, so long. Still, her pursuer was on her trail, only a few steps away. She’d pushed into some sort of office, though it was hard to tell with the palette and rats and rot that were there. She didn’t close the door, there was no time. So far, that was the only mistake Sebastian had seen her make. 

She crawled under a desk, hiding behind the palette. She was breathing hard, making small noises. Sebastian wanted to tell her to be quiet, but this was a memory. 

She wasn’t really there, not then. 

She kept her eye on the gap between the planks that made up the palette, watching her pursuer. It was only a few seconds before she saw, him, a man with blood red gloves, holding a wicked looking knife, stepping into the room, looking around. 

It was not the photographer though. This man was not wearing a suit but a stained and bloodied lab coat, military doctor fatigues underneath. He just stepped inside, took a look around, and didn’t spot Lily at all. When he didn’t claim her, he turned to sand, and the sand blew away. 

Then the photographer came in, in the same door, in the same way. He stopped just within the room, turning one way and then the other, looking with his entire body over the space. Lily had gone quiet, having caught her breath when the first of them were there. 

The photographer turned and went back the way he came, as calm as ever, giving up. 

She didn’t wait long enough before moving to the side, losing her cover. Sebastian wanted her to stay, not run off and hide again, but he couldn’t tell her that. He could do nothing to protect her. He could feel the guilt trying to choke him. 

She screamed as the photographer popped out from the other side, screaming at her as if he were just trying to surprise her. She backed away, back under the desk, but there was no escape back there. She had no weapons, was nothing more than a child, and now she was face to face with a fully-grown psychopath. 

He laughed, bordering on manic, before reaching in and claiming her. 

\-------------------

Oh, he could feel the swell of the music, dancing through his veins. He moved with it, letting it sway his direction. The Core, the girl, was here, hiding away, and he would take her in his arms, pull her to pieces, and feast on all of that potential. He would waltz with her corpse and oh, how he should have set up the space, brought the studio to them, for he wanted so terribly to do it now, do it here. He was not a fan of self portraits but with this, how could he decline such majesty?

He took the steps two at a time, his excitement making the blood rush in his ears, in his eye. He could feel it’s pulse, could feel the pain ready to flare and burst, the scar tissue more like intricate veins, making him more than human. He was more than human. In this place, he as a God and he was toying with another God, one that would soon be lesser than him. One whose power would fill him to bursting. It already felt like electricity against his skin. 

He did not pause, just drew his knife, as he saw the man in the labcoat. He was ahead of him. Stefano wondered if he was also after the girl, but it didn’t matter. He would kill this interloper if he had to. There was no fear in him upon seeing the man now, he was too well strung, too beautifully composed, the energy in the air notes that held his melody together. 

Perhaps he wouldn’t take the Core apart, but this man instead, pull his organs from his body and photograph them all like a beautifully shining fruit basket, while the doctor watched on in horror. It would be vengeance and art all at once. Stefano could think of nothing more elegant. He was sure he could think of something more extravagant though. 

Once he had the girl, he would have all the time in the world to play with the doctor. 

The doctor opened a door, the door, and a wave of creation spilled into the lumber yard, making Stefano take a step back. It was too much, it was not enough, it was shocking and exhilarating. He had to hurry though, now there was a chance that he might lose the girl to this hunter. He took his steps more quickly, still not allowing his concern to show. If there was to be a fight, the doctor would be taken by surprise. 

When he got through the door though, into the small office, the doctor was nowhere to be seen. The girl, however, was right there, so obvious. He smiled to himself, turning to leave the room. He was certain that the doctor was still around somewhere, but he was no longer a threat. Stefani wondered what his purpose here was. 

He looked around but did not see the man any further. He felt eyes on him, but that was good, that was deserved. 

He stepped forward, stepping out to the opposite side of the girl’s hiding place. Her scream of terror as he bent down, as he grabbed her, filled him with ecstasy. Yes, he would fill the world with art that night. 

\----------------------

He was furious and no number of monsters in his way could calm his nerves. He’d plunged his knife into as many he could, shot the rest, and none of them even curbed his anger. He saw the man, no Lily in sight, ahead of him, not even noticing him, flashing from place to place. Where was Lily? How had he grabbed her and then made her vanish so quickly? 

Sebastian left the lumber yard by the same door he’d entered, finding the photographer standing on the top of one of the crates, waiting for him. He didn’t know if he should have been relieved to not have to keep hunting the stranger down or if he should come up guns blaring. The latter felt more honest, more like him, but he would never know where the man had hid Lily if he was dead. 

“Hey! You! The girl… where is she?” He didn’t dare say her name. As much as he loved Lily, pretending that she was a stranger would be for the best. If this stranger didn’t know why Sebastian was after her, that could protect her, at least for a little bit longer. The man did seem to hold some grudge against him, one that he didn’t understand at all. 

The man was smoking slightly, ready to flash away. He turned, looked at Sebastian, and the world felt like static. Things were shifting, changing, and then they were being watched. A large eye, it’s lashes like a hundred tentacles, it’s iris a camera aperture, flickered into being, far off in the sky. The man himself, didn’t bother stepping into the smoke as much as he just vanished into it, leaving Sebastian alone in the yard, new sounds coming to greet him.

\---------------------

Obscura, beautiful and elegant, all long legs and poise, was at the lumber yard in an instant. The moment that Stefano called her she was there, hanging from the ceiling, moaning in her deep voice to let him know that she was there. He had no doubts of it. His best creation, a loyal and eloquent statement at the affairs of men. 

The girl was shaking, sobbing in that way that was out of true terror, silent and messy. Stefano’s camera was out, ready to photograph such expression, but then there was the sound of the lost downstairs, a scuffle of some sort. They weren’t alone. No, he’d known that that doctor was here, but this was that other man, the prey, and he was something different, something interesting. 

He would photograph the Core later, but for now he handed her over to Obscura, who whined and, still on the ceiling, headed out, back towards the theatre. The girl was still crying but it was less in Obscura’s arms, for some reason. Obscura was humming softly as she went and Stefano could see her stroking the girl’s hair. 

Strange. Perhaps there was something remaining in Obscura from her original materials. 

He stepped forward, away from the room, away from the doctor. Stefano was certain he was still there, somewhere, waiting for an encore. Stefano had performed magnificently so far, he would expect nothing less than a standing ovation from the man. 

He stepped down to the lower floor, hearing his prey climb up the ladder, just so close to being in time. Stefano grinned to himself. The man was tenacious, even if he was a fool. Stefano would commend him, but that would be giving credit for failure. 

He stepped forward again. He was feeling good, about himself, about his job. Theodore wanted the girl and he had gotten her for him, now he would have to hand her over, but he felt he could wait on that. The rewards had been plentiful and Stefano felt, well earned, but he could demand more now that he had the Core, could feel how much power was really in there, ready to be molded into something far more. 

A hand on his shoulder, fast, surprising, and he was shoved up against a wall. The doctor was upon him and now, he was so close, Stefano couldn’t pretend that it was someone else, couldn’t pretend that he didn’t recognize him. His heart was in his throat, his pulse in his ears, his teeth gritted. Everything about him was too tense against the wall and, while he was taller than Paolo who felt so so small. 

“There we are, pretty boy!” Paolo smiled, his pupils dilated as if in the throes of lust. There was no fear in him, there never had been. His hand was still on Stefano’s shoulder, and he was slowly pushing down, as if to get Stefano on his knees. He let his knees fall apart instead, he was used to having his legs apart for Paolo. “Was wondering when you’d catch up.”

A whine escaped Stefano’s throat, the only sound that he could make. There was pain throughout his body, from the tension, from the ghosts of hands exploring, cutting, removing, touching, and fondling. It was all too much. Paolo wasn’t supposed to be here. 

Paolo’s face was close, his mouth inches away from Stefano’s throat, his pulse point so openly on display that the doctor could sink his teeth in and tear it out. He was no longer an artist, not here. Now, he was just a patient, all over again. “You’d better get her to Theodore, and soon. The man is terribly impatient. Not like me.”

Stefano knew how patient Paolo was. He gulped. He couldn’t focus, his eye roaming the walls, Paolo’s face. He looked the same as eh did back them, his military scrubs under his lab coat. He even smelled the same, of blood and medicine and sand. 

Paolo kissed him then, his lips so gentle and kind that it felt insulting for Stefano to be so stiff, so unresponsive. He couldn’t respond. He couldn’t move. His eye was burning, tears filling it. His other eye was a mass of pain, worse than it had been since he’d arrived in Union, memories flooding him of those moments where Paolo’s hands and tools were in the socket, trying to save whatever he could. 

The kiss ended and Paolo pulled back, smiling as if they were lovers, adoration in his features. He slapped Stefano’s cheek playfully, just hard enough to make Stefano flinch and shrink in on himself further. “Come now, be a good soldier and do what you’re told.”

Stefano closed his eye, both against the man and the memories he conjured up. 

When he opened his eye again Polo was gone and he could breathe again. His breaths came as deep gasps and he slid down the wall, just breathing, forcing his body to relax, trying to forget the feeling of hands on his person, in his person. 

He had to get out of there. He had to get to the Core. He had to get her, it, to Theodore. He couldn’t spend time with it, couldn’t play with its power, couldn’t create, not with Paolo around. He would do it, he would be a good soldier. Theodore would keep him safe. 

Someone was coming, the prey, Stefano realized. He pulled himself to his feet, turning on the music with a burst of static. It wouldn’t be enough, but he hoped it would be enough of a distraction. It was a reminder to himself that he had power here and hopefully it would be enough to hide his own panic.   
He stepped forward, again and again, knowing that the prey was catching up to him. He didn’t want to be spoken to, he didn’t want to have to deal with people, they were too tiring. He stepped forward, onto one of the large crates. 

“Hey! You! The girl… where is she?” the man asked, his voice rough and grizzled, like his face. 

Stefano sighed, minuscule, and turned, his bad eye towards the man. He didn’t want the stranger to see his face. Something was happening though the warm and fuzzy feeling of static that he himself produced mimicked in a cold and distant way. A shape was growing in the sky, Stefano focusing on it, keeping his face turned toward his prey, trying to hide the fact that this was a surprise to him. 

The shape was an eye, watching him, the iris looking like a camera. It wasn’t though, Stefano could tell that from here. It was something else. 

Stephano stepped forward, away from that place, without an answer for the man.


	4. Chapter 4

There was a picture, waiting for him, pierced through with a bit of barbed wire on the fence. Sebastian took it, wondering what it was with STEM and barbed wire. Union didn’t have it so bad but Beacon was covered in the stuff. The photograph wasn’t great, wasn’t much of anything, and was not in the usual style of the man who took Lily. It was too far away, too blurry. On the back of it was scrawled ‘Waiting for you’. 

Sebastian grit his teeth. Whoever this guy was, whoever these people were, they were toying with him, thought that they could get away with it. They were waiting and he wouldn’t be a disappointment to them. 

The barbed wire flickered and faded away, and he relaxed a bit. He didn’t want to climb it anyway and it didn’t seem like there was another way around. The stress though, rebuilt itself immediately, as he saw the bits and pieces of bodies lying around the courtyard before City Hall. Sebastian had barely taken a few steps before the pieces began to move, to travel, to connect in the front of the fountain. It wasn’t even halfway made before that cackle resonated around the space and Sebastian knew that he was dealing with that woman, made out of bodies, with a saw for one arm, again. 

He growled, squared his shoulders, and ran. He didn’t have enough ammo for this, and he was already hurt, some of those creatures from before having bit into him, beaten him until he felt soft and weak. He couldn’t waste time on this. He had to find a way past. 

The front door was locked and she was charging him. He swore under his breath. There was an arrow though, splattered in blood, on the door, pointing to the left of the building. She was close, getting closer. 

Sebastian fired one of his electric bolts, hoping that would slow her down, and jumped down the steps. He heard her screech, but didn’t pause to look. He raced, instead, in the direction the arrow had pointed. This path led to more obstacles, more traps, but there were more arrows as well, pointing them out and also the direction of the door. 

The door was locked as well, but the monster behind him was running into every trap that Sebastian had avoided. He had time. He shoved himself against the door, threw himself on it a few times, feeling the bruising in his shoulder deepen before he broke his way through. 

He went down the stairs, hearing the cackling woman stop her laughter, to groan in disappointment instead. Sebastian relaxed. She wasn’t going to follow him in here. She couldn’t fit through the door, for one. 

There were a few more of those simple creatures in here, but Sebastian was able to take care of them with his knife before making his way out of maintenance and into City Hall proper. 

He saw the man immediately, shushing a Mobius operator as he administered some shot, making the operator seize up and groan before relaxing indefinitely. The man looked like a doctor, and when he stood, turning to Sebastian, his grim features twisted into ones of joy. “Ah, there you are! I’ve been waiting for you!”

He had an accent, same as the photographers. He stepped in front of the Mobius agent, as if tying to hide it. “Don’t worry about him, he’s dead. The only thing I could do was take away his pain, after that thing outside destroyed his body so.”

“Where’s the Core?” Sebastian spat. He didn’t have time for this, for any of it. 

The doctor stepped closer to him and held out a communicator for Sebastian. “The Core, the girl, is not your concern, not right now.”

Sebastian could have punched him. Lily was the only concern he had. 

“This place is falling apart around us, I’m sure you’ve noticed. There is a machine, upstairs, which will give you more time. Use this to get the machine back up and running and you’ll be able to traverse Union a bit longer.”

Sebastian took it. There was more though, things that the doctor wasn’t saying, things that he wanted. This wasn’t a gift, it was a negotiation. “What do you want?”

“Me? Want?” The doctor pretended to be offended, “Oh, it’s nothing much. I know you’re after my little soldier, though I do not know why. He stole the Core, has no intention to take it where it needs to go. All I’m asking is, whatever it is you are after, whatever you choose to do, you give him to me.”

“Soldier?” Sebastian hadn’t seen any soldiers. The Mobius operatives were the closest and so far the only ones that he’d met that would have been anywhere decent in the military were dead. 

The doctor brought up his hands, mimed taking a photograph, and Sebastian knew exactly who he meant. 

“Who is he?” Sebastian asked. The more information he had, the better he’d be against him. He had a feeling he’d be meeting the man soon. 

“A patient of mine,” the doctor explained, gesticulating slightly, “a bit more than that, perhaps. He was a special case of mine. And now he has this illusions of grandeur which, in this place, are far more than illusions.”

“Fine.” Sebastian didn’t care about their relationship or any of that. He’d been hoping for a name or a weakness or something like that. This guy seemed to be in the same mindset of flowery language over actual information as the photographer though, and he wouldn’t get anything useful from him. “I’ll leave him to you. 

\----------------

She was frightened, hiding away in one corner of the dark room. It was strange, how no matter where he went, there was a dark room, as if everywhere he stepped changed itself to suit his needs. He had power here, there was no denying that. 

Stefano was trying to ignore her, developing some images instead, but she was sniffling and something about her being there was just wrong. This was not the time for an audience, there was no need for someone to watch him behind the scenes. 

He went over to her, kneeling before her, watching as she stiffened and pulled away. That was good, wasn’t it? Her to fear him? He could feel his urges grow, his desire to create to swell before her. But it felt misplaced, all the same. He wasn’t even doing anything. 

“Surely, you must stop that sniveling at some point,” Stefano mused, looking her over. “Do you even have a name?”

She stilled under his attention, as if being scared was a punishable offence. She slowly pulled her head up from behind her arms and looked him over. She was trembling, slightly, but she was doing a good job of hiding her fear now. Her eyes traveled over his face, mostly. 

“Your face is better,” she said, taking Stefano aback. He touched his cheek, under his hair. It felt the same as ever. He didn’t know what she was taking about. “You don’t look so scary. And of course I have a name. I’m Lily!” 

There were no mirrors in this place, he’d had no need for them, no desire to see the damage, the horrific thing that his face had become. But now, now he didn’t look so scary, and he didn’t know what that meant. He wanted to see. 

“Do you know why you’re so wanted, Lily?” Stefano asked, more out of a need to distract himself from what she’d already said than anything else. 

She shook her head, “Mom, said I’m the center of the universe, but I don’t know what that means.”

Stefano smirked, “That you are, my dear, and it means that this universe, at least, must bend to your will. You are teeming with power, something akin to a god in this place, and people, myself included, want to use that power to create things of their own.”

“But you’re already making things,” Lily argued, looking to the ceiling. With a smile Stefano followed her gaze, to Obscura, rocking slowing on the ceiling. 

“Yes, but nothing to as great extents that you would allow.”

\---------------------

The image changed behind him, the light changing to a deep deep red. Sebastian truend to it, away from the images of gore. “That’s Lily,” he breathed, looking at it. It was her, with one of her dolls in hand, running through a large red canvas. She was turned away from him, but there was no way that he could be wrong. “This guy’s playing with me.”

He turned around. If this guy loved anything, it was making Sebastian turn around. The hall was different though, all of the photos on the walls gone and there was a pulsing red light. He remembered the hallway from Beacon, the one that shuddered and seemed to go forever, the door at the end opening into a wave of blood. He shook his head, thinking of Beacon wouldn’t help him here.

The hall didn’t look like it would change in length, it was already long enough. Still, it shuddered when he was half way along it and a voice came from the walls, deep and muffled. He could find a way through, to the owner of that voice. But no, he had to keep moving.

“This one’s perfect, naturally so,” the photographer mused and Sebastian hoped this was a memory, not something happening now. If he was saying all this about Lily… he couldn’t think about what he would do. “it is my work, after all. Death preserved on silver nitrate. Like a fly in amber.”

Sebastian kept moving, he was going to get to that door. It wasn’t moving, it wasn’t leaving him behind.

“Beautiful.”

The door opened and he could see the man, standing there, taking photos. He didn’t seem worried about Sebastian’s gun, trained on him. He was so close to pulling the trigger. He wanted to pull the trigger. He couldn’t hurt Lily if he was dead.

The photographer took another shot.

Sebastian couldn’t shoot him, as much as he wanted to. The man had Lily, that was true, but Union was a big place, Sebastian would need him to lead the way to her. 

He’d already promised the man to that doctor guy, too. It might be easier to just kill him then hand him over, but Sebastian didn’t want to kill anyone if he didn’t have to.

The man chuckled to himself, turned on his heel and led Sebastian into a deep red room.

—————————— 

Something was coming, both through the horrible headache trying to break through his skull and through the building. He could feel it, setting off his traps, the memories he had stored in this place. He had had an exhibit here, something small, and it was easy to put his energy back into the work he had lent City Hall.

Lily was drawing, he’d at least gotten her out of her corner, and Obscura was sitting around her, watching over her shoulder. The girl was talking to her, not bothered in the least by Obscura’s moans. The noise was nice, grounding. There was a torrent of sound in his head, such an urge, a need, to create, that he could barely hear anything else. But that voice cut through it so easily.

He could feel it, the power, coming over him in waves, hers and his own, intermingling into a new sensation. It was a drug, heightening him to so much more than he’d ever been, making him more than he’d ever thought. It was so very very tempting.

He had had a drug take him over before, he did not want it again. Even with the flair of originality it promised.

“Obscura, would you take Lily to the theatre?” he asked, his voice trembling, starting to rise. He shoved it down, slowed it, tried to mask the strangeness that was forming in it.

Lily stopped talking and he could feel her eyes on him, “Is something wrong?” she asked. He’d never met a child so observant.

“I’m not feeling too well,” Stefano admitted, knowing that lying to her would just lead to more questions. He was an artist, fantastic at allowing his emotions to come forth, to do the speaking for him, lying was not something he was good at. “and, I fear something is coming that would threaten you and this place. You would adore the theatre, Lily, the feeling of being on that stage- it is magnificent.”

She didn’t seem convinced, “What about you?”

He didn’t want to admit that he was one of the threats, but he could feel it, racing through him, focusing on the space where his eye used to be, the veins there filling with poisonous intent. “I want to know this enemy. Obscura, once Lily is safe, return here. I am going to need you.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's a bit late guys, I was moving and now my entire body/brain are super tired.

The Stable Field Emitter was a large and obvious thing, in the middle of a room as if it were on display. Sebastian raced to it, had to turn it on, keep Union from shattering around him for just a little bit longer. He was almost upon it when he heard the telltale signs of the photographer behind him. Grabbing his gun, he spun, ready to fire. 

Then the lights behind him went off in a cascade, and a photograph was taken, and he was still. He could still think, and his thoughts were moving fast, trying to think of what he could do, how to escape, how to stop a man who could just step out of the way of anything that came at him and could freeze time with a flash. 

He lowered his camera and strolled into the room, a smile playing on his thin lips. “You’ve been searching for me for so long; so, I have come.” 

He walked behind Sebastian, fiddling with his camera. Sebastian couldn’t see him, not for the angle nor for the fact that the man had his face hidden by his hair once more. 

“But wait, it’s not me you seek, is it? No. It’s the girl.” Something about the way he said ‘the girl’ made Sebastian internally shiver. It was almost a purr. He made his way to the Stable Field Emitter. “I should be offended. But how can I be? You’re not the only person who wants her power.”

He was right there, right behind Sebastian. If he weren’t frozen he could kill him, so easily, just shoot him point blank. Just be done with it. Screw that doctor. Right now, though, through the fit of rage that was making him feel more and more like a dam about to burst, he was the vulnerable one. The photographer really enjoyed that knife of his and he could slip it through Sebastian’s throat without even a millimeter of resistance. 

Sebastian couldn’t see him, but he could see a man wandering towards them, from down the hall. The photographer wasn’t paying attention to the man in the military fatigues, the doctor who had been looking for Lily as well. The man said nothing, just stood down the hall, before turning into sand and vanishing once more. He wanted to see Sebastian complete his side of the deal. 

The photographer walked back the way he came, to stand before Sebastian. “There is another, someone far more deserving. One who can offer rewards you could never imagine.” He traveled to Sebastian’s open side, the camera in one hand, the knife in the other, “So sorry, but you’ve been outbid.”

He brought the knife down, a light huff coming from his mouth. It should have been over, it should have all gone dark. Sebastian couldn’t allow that. His anger was a living thing, writhing inside of him, and it would not be killed, not like this. 

The photographer had stopped with less than an inch between the knife and Sebastian’s eye. He couldn’t blink, couldn’t look away, but he was starting to be able to twitch. 

“Fear…” the photographer crooned, “radiates from you.”

The knife came down, not into his eye, but through the spiderwebs of Sebastian’s temple, curving slightly. It was a light touch, just enough to reach the meat under his skin, but the cut felt like ice and fire battling for dominance over his nerves. 

He took the knife away, seeing the blood on the very tip. “It’s beautiful... But not quite finished.” He sounded like he was admiring one of his macabre photographs, not Sebastian himself. He waved the knife around, almost like it was an extension of his hand. He knew how to use weaponry, more than a photographer had ought to, Sebastian could tell that. Only someone who was used to wielding a knife like that could so elegantly, with it appearing so organic. 

“I am Stefano,” he finally introduced. It wasn’t a name that Sebastian was willing to forget. He was going to survive this, and he was going to ask Kidman about it. He was going to know everything he needed in order to take this man down. 

A smile spread across his intricately textured face. “And now you are my art…”

He started to walk off, just as Sebastian’s body started to break through the freezing frame. He was groaning, his muscles spasming, the finger on the trigger ready to plunge. Stefano was looking over his shoulder as Sebastian but didn’t seem worried. 

Sebastian continued his momentum, both hands on his pistol, and aimed true. “Son of a bitch!” he growled and found that he was alone. No, not alone. There was a horrible moaning above him. He turned, looked at the grotesque amalgam, human and spider and camera, all made of flesh and flash, crawling upside down on the ceiling. 

“Meet my beautiful Obscura.” Stefano mused, his voice coming from everywhere. 

\------------------------------

The headache cracked and shoved itself through, forward, as if he were stepping through the world, as if he were a piece of glass on the edge of a shelf, fragile, beautiful, and prone to falling. He felt as if he had allowed himself to jump. 

The man, how stubborn, had such an effect on him, and he couldn’t help himself but to dance around him, to look at each of those features, frozen in place, just for him. The prey was too late, would always be too late, and Stefano wondered if it was a crushing guilt that he saw in the man’s eye. There was no fear, not here. 

He glanced at the machine. He did not care for it, one way or another. The prey though, he did. Stefano had no reason not to allow him access to it, but there was no reason to allow him any success. It was far more interesting to see a man fail, watch as that hope fell from him as the glass that he’d found himself as, than it was to see any hint of satisfaction. Well, there was his own satisfaction, and he would not deny himself that. 

The prey was trying to keep an eye on him, not that Stefano could blame him, but it was no use. He could hardly move and what movement he had was slowed down tremendously. Still, he didn’t notice Obscura returning, oddly quiet as she moved through the room. She seemed far more interested in the machine than Stefano was. 

She was bored, she hadn’t been able to destroy anything in a while. Even the girl, she had had nothing to do, but watch and hum oddly. Stefano didn’t understand it, she had never hummed like that before. He hadn’t hurt the girl, either, when he should have. He had so many ideas, and her fear was such an inspiration. 

He was still prattling on, but his mind was going everywhere, searching through himself, finding such beautiful rivulets of ideas. A bouquet of flesh and blood, an audience that was the art itself, turning the concept around on itself. Yes, he would make this, her fear in watching him work turned into an entire canvas of concepts. 

And fear, radiated through his prey now, onto his knife in red proof. He hardly flinched, but he couldn’t, not trapped as he was. Stefano smiled, dragging his knife down to the preys cheek. He wasn’t ready, as much as Stefano wanted him to be. He was a resilient one. Not ready, not art, not what he wanted. 

He’d let Obscura have her fun. She may not succeed, but it didn’t matter, one way or another. It would give him time to get to Lily. He had to create, he had to make something, get his hands on that perfect medium of flesh, right then. 

He took a step forward and left the prey behind. 

\------------------------

“Sebastian? Sebastian, are you there?” Kidman sounded urgent, strong but with a bit of worry under it all. She was probably surrounded by those Mobius assholes. 

“Kidman,” Sebastian leaned against the fountain. He was out of City Hall, Union would exist a little while longer, but he was exhausted. That Obscura thing was still alive, could get out and try to kill him and he knew that he should keep moving, at least to the safe house on the other side of this little island, but for the moment, he just needed to rest. 

“Finally. Are you alright?”

“That psycho is still on the loose out here,” he gritted his teeth, pinching the bridge of his nose as he thought about it, everything that was going so wrong, “I turned on the emitter and that seemed to slow him down, but he got away. And he’s got Lily. She must be so scared and alone.” He shouldn’t have been talking like this, shouldn’t have been pouring out his fears to Kidman, not with the rest there, listening in. They’d probably find some way to twist his worries against him.

He touched the wound on his face, finding it to still be bleeding. If this was the real world, he’d need stitches. He sighed. It wasn’t that big of a change in his features but it had been years since he last saw Lily. He was older now, visibly, and not much of him looked like the father she knew. He wondered if she’d even recognize him. 

“I’ve got to find her before something terrible happens to her.”

He pulled out the photograph, the one that had been salvaged from his home, burned on the edges. He still didn’t know why Juli had it, why she’d keep it just to show him at the most opportune moment. It all felt staged. A lot of the coincidences around Juli Kidman had always felt staged. 

“I’m so close. I can feel it.”

“We want to find her just as much as you do, Sebastian,” Juli confirmed but it wasn’t helpful, it wasn’t what Sebastian needed to hear. He knew that they didn’t have the same reasons for finding her. They didn’t care for her safety. They just wanted to plug her back into that machine, get Union running again. But something in her voice made it sound like Juil wasn’t talking about Mobius.

That didn’t stop the poison in his mouth though, “Yeah, sure you do. Don’t want your precious experiment to fail. It would be a real tragedy to waste all that time and money.”

It hit a nerve, he could tell before he’d even finished. “I was speaking for myself, not Mobius.” Julie spat back at him, sounding a bit more like herself back when she worked under him. Then, softer, “I… spent a lot of time with Lily during testing. She’s a good kid. I don’t want her to suffer. I know things are bad but I have faith in you. You’ve got to stay focused so we can save her. Together.”

And now he felt bad. He’d already felt bad but now he felt bad for a different reason. Perhaps he’d been wrong. Not about Mobius, never about them, but maybe Juli really was on his side. Maybe she had been for a lot longer than he’d suspected. “Yeah. Okay, you’re right. Thanks for the pep talk Kidman.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she was all seriousness again. “But right now you have to figure out where he took her.”

“He said his name was Stefano.”

“Stefano. Copy that. I’ll see what I can find out and send it to your room.” There it was, the help he needed. He hoped that the information would be worthwhile. He should have led with that, gotten to the root of the situation, instead of dithering with his emotions. He’d ever been good at bottling them up though. Speaking things through was one of the better ways to get through his feelings and it was better to talk to a person instead of a bottle any day. 

He stood up, looking around the blessedly empty courtyard. “Okay, in the meantime, I’ll check in with O’Neal, see if he can help me locate this psycho.”

“Sounds like a plan. Let me know if I can be of any help. And… Sebastian?” the confidence in Juli’s voice took a dip, away from calculated and puppeted. 

“Yeah?”

“Good luck.”

“Thanks.” He took the radio down from his face, turning to look at all of the other little islands, all of the broken pieces of Union. Juli had sounded so human there, at the end of the call. He didn’t know what to make of it. 

He didn’t need O’Neal, not to find Stefano, anyway. A quick glance at his surroundings answered that question easily. There was another little island, almost upside down in comparison, with that horrible eye hovering over it, long spindly legs keeping it from falling off and away. 

It was a spotlight. It might have been benefitting Sebastian right now, but the man truly loved attention. Sebastian wondered if he could use that against him. 

\--------------------------

It was so easy, as it ought to be, for Stefano to gather his materials. He flitted from one to the next, promising safety within the theatre. They all trusted him, too frightened of what Union had become, to disobey. Oh, he would dress them and prime them in his way and then, when the audience arrived, he would create his masterpiece. 

He knew there would be an audience. There was no way that his prey would miss this. 

He’d gathered enough of the still sentient members of Union before he arrived at the theatre and made his way inside. He had the materials and the raw idea, but he needed the inspiration, the flare that would make the piece so utterly unforgettable.   
He let the civilians find their own way, once they new it, to the theatre. The core was waiting. 

She was behind the stage, a pad of paper before her. She did not look terrified now. Where had that gone? Regardless, he could instill it once more. He strode over to her, pulling his knife from its hiding place, ready to stab it down in front of her, perhaps through a hand or something else trivial. Pain was a good interlude to true horror. 

“You’re here!” she brightly said looking up at him, but then that smile faded away. “Oh, your face is scary again.”

He played with the knife. He was so close. She was trying to hide it but he could feel it, the panic, starting to rise up in her. He let the blade skirt his red fingers. He watched as her eyes left his face to trace the shape of the knife, dancing against his gloves. He was going to have such good fun with this. 

Then the world shifted and he fell forward, the knife sliding out of his grip and into his flesh instead. The glove took the brunt of the damage but still, the blade dared to pierce him through it. He hissed, feeling that horrible headache return to him, and Lily was on her feet, coming towards him. She was saying something and her face, it was all wrong. 

She should have been filled with horror, should have known that he was about to do something terrible to her. Instead there was something else, pity or something more caring. She took his bleeding hand, took the glove from it and he had to fight the urge to rip the appendage away. There were things hidden there that she should not see. 

She planted a small kiss about the fresh wound and smiled up at him, her expression meant to calm him. “There, kisses always make it better.” And the skin stitched itself back together, the urge to make something subsided, and Stefano felt more himself or someone else, he wasn’t sure. 

There was still worry on her face though, as he watched his skin heal before pulling the glove back onto it. “Your nose is bleeding.”

He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped at it. It was a pretty heavy stream, beautiful as it absorbed itself into the white fabric. He looked at Lily, finding no fear in her, once again. 

“My face?” he asked, knowing that he sounded weak and quiet, not like himself.

“Not scary now,” she answered, knowing exactly what he had meant.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one's really long and I'm sorry about my interpretation of Hoffman. She's always rubbed me the wrong way, both in how her character model moved and how she talked about those with mental illness.   
> Hopefully, this will be the last big chunk of direct transcription from the game. If anyone needs the transcripts I've written so far, please feel free to use them. 
> 
> Lastly, this story has suddenly become much more important to me. I recently realized that through my own mental illness and lack of taking care of them, I have lost whatever sense of empathy I once had. Through multiple quizzes I have found that my empathy level is in the same realm of psychopathy, although I still have a great deal of sympathy and compassion. While Stefano doesn't show much of the latter two in game, I don't think he's completely devoid of them, and this may be a bit more exploratory into my own issues with how the world views psychopathy and how I view my own emotional bonds.

Fixing the Stable Field Emitter wasn’t doing anything to fix Union, but it was slowing down its decay. It was getting bad though, really bad, all the way down through the bones and into the Marrow. Those things were down there too and, when Sebastian made it to the safe room, he didn’t expect anyone to be alive. He should have checked the room, been actually thorough, before heading to the computer. The gun aimed him came as a bit too much of a surprise. 

“Don’t move,” she demanded and, of course, Sebastian disobeyed, turning towards the noise. 

“You’re Mobius right? I’m-“

Her shoving him forward made him splay out his hands, both to catch himself and to show he wasn’t a threat. The push wasn’t too hard but it was aided by a gun and how unbalanced he was. This person, she knew about Lily, she’d been watching everything out there. 

“Shut up! Don’t say a word. You’re not one of us.”

“No,” Sebastian disobeyed again. “I’m not. Kidman sent me. Look. I’m here to help, okay? My name is Sebastian Castellanos.”

Her hand was still on his back, cold through his shirt but not as cold as the gun barrel. “You’re lying. Sebastian Castellanos is dead.” 

And that hit. He was dead? In all records, in all fronts, he was still alive. He was pretty sure that if he had died in being sent into Union, he wouldn’t be alive now, at least, not in his current condition. He wanted to know why he was supposed to be dead, who wanted him to be. 

“What? No. Who… who told you that?”

She released him suddenly, her footsteps quite on the cement floor. She was more attuned to stealth than combat. None of the Mobius agents sent in here for Lily were trained right. 

“Turn around,” she commanded, he could hear her hand move to the gun, keeping it steady. “Do it slow.”

This time he did do as he was told, keeping his hands raised. No sudden movements, no reason to get shot. He didn’t even know what would happen if he got shot in a safe room. Taking damage here made it seem a bit useless. 

The woman was standing in the shadows, but she stepped into the light slowly, as if savoring the drama of it. Her face was soft but her expression harsh, though the lines in it didn’t show that to be normal. Her hair was a mess, dangling in front of her face, a nuisance if she had to fight. She was dressed like Mobius though and one arm was ridiculously bandaged, as if she’d taken a lot of damage on her way to the safe room. 

“You’re Yukiko Hoffman,” Sebastian breathed. 

“How do you know my name?” she asked, angry. 

“I told you: they sent me in here to find my daughter, Lily. The Core. I’m telling you the truth!”

Finally she lowered her gun, sighing. She didn’t look like she even knew how to fire it. “I know.” 

She turned away from him, walking towards one of the desks. 

“You do?”

She turned on the lights, though they flickered a bit before coming on strong. It looked like any of the other safe rooms Sebastian had seen, aside from his own, but with a few more computers. 

“Lack of microexpressions and deflection. No verbal parroting. I’ve seen enough to know you’re telling the truth.”   
Sebastian bit the inside of his cheek, not wanting to anger her by pointing out the fallacies in her textbook understanding. That wasn’t just lying, Sebastian had seen those responses in enough domestic violence cases to know. 

“Right,” he looked her over, far too small, no muscle on her, no reason to think she could survive outside of this saferoom for long, “The Team Psychologist.”

She nodded, “I have to use whatever tools I have to survive.” 

She walked over to some of the machines and a pile of folders on one of the desks, turning back with her arms crossed once she’d reached them. She was obviously favoring her left arm. “Combat isn’t my forte.”

“Seems to be a running theme here.”

“Sorry for pointing my gun at you.” She smiled softly, but it looked foreign on her. “So they’re sending independent contractors now? That means things aren’t improving. Have you found any other team members?”

“I have,” Sebastian admitted, wondering how detailed of a report he should give, “but the only one I’ve found alive is O’Neal.”

She perked up at that, more than Sebastian would have expected. Perhaps she wasn’t a big fan of the other team members. “Liam is alive? Good. Has he made any progress on stabilization?”

Sebastian wanted to say no, because really Liam hadn’t done much. It had been Sebastian doing all of the heavy lifting and it was starting to wear him down. “The big Emitter’s back on. But this place is still falling apart. And I think it’s all because of this psycho that kidnapped Lily.” The Core. He should have called her the Core. O’Neal hadn’t been able to wrap his head around the idea of her having a name. To these people, she was just a tool, not a child. “He’s running loose in Union and can manipulate this place at will.”

“That means my theory is correct. This is more than a Core dis-connect. We doctors don’t like to use the term ‘psycho’ in pejorative terms. But in this case, it’s apropos. Only a clinically diagnosed psychopath could affect STEM like this.” She thought about it, hand to her chin, “A psychopathic personality type using Lily to amplify his power… this is the worst possible situation.”  
It was bad alright, Sebastian could tell her that first hand, but theories were doing him jack shit at the moment. “You’re a shrink. Any suggestions on how to defeat him?”

“Psychopaths are antisocial, lack empathy, and exhibit sadistic tendencies.” She wasn’t talking about Stefano like he was a person, but a sample in a petri dish. Even though Sebastian hated the guy, couldn’t wait to cull him, he felt this was a bit odd. Maybe Joseph had been wearing off on him, all those years ago, stepping up and correcting people when they treated the mentally ill as lesser. Talking to Hoffman made him feel like he was in the room with Jimenez all over again. “But their main commonality is their pathologic egocentricity. They don’t care about people, only themselves. Can you think of anything that would be important to him?”

Sebastian didn’t have to think hard on that one. Everywhere Stefano went there were traces of it, all done up in frames. “Yeah. He thinks he’s some sort of artist. It’s all he talks about.”

“Then maybe the best way to attack him would be through his art. Destroying something valuable to him could knock him off of his guard.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. But I’ve got to get to him first.”

\---------------

The theatre was filling up. Stefano watched them all wandering into the lobby, looking around themselves. There were a few of his pieces down there to keep them busy, but nothing too extravagant. He had wanted to set up a mood, not overwhelm, and the shock of the grandeur he would create would be diminished by having too much down below. 

The red curtains were enough. 

There was a familiar face amongst the civilians, a recognizable saunter. A white coat amongst the darker earthier tones. Stefano felt his mouth go dry as he took a step back. He didn’t want to be seen. He had been, of course he had been, that huge thing in the sky wasn’t ever blinking, ever looking away. 

The floorboards creaked beneath his feet and he could hear the sound of sand spilling onto the ground. 

A puff of sand and blood and Paolo pulled himself out of the air, similar to Stefano’s own movement but filthier, drawn out of a warzone. There was a playful smile on his lips but that wasn’t enough to distract from the wicked syringe he was drawing. 

Stefano stood still, looking around, trying to find a way, anyway, out of there. He could feel the muscles in his legs spasm with the urge to run, but he didn’t know where to go. It didn’t matter, Paolo would find him, had found him, would always find him. 

“You were supposed to deliver the Core by now,” Paolo lifted the syringe, poking his own finger with it to test its sharpness. Stefano’s veins sang with lust for it, though his mind screamed at his own weakness. “Where is she?”

Stefano forced a smile, showing all of his teeth. “So that is all that this is about?” It was a relief of sorts, for Paolo to be after her, not himself, though he didn’t trust Paolo to keep it that way. 

Paolo stepped closer and Stefano could not stop himself from stepping back, gulping. “I just want to make sure you are doing as you’re told, my good little soldier. Once the Core is in place, well, I don’t want to spoil what my reward is for that task.”

Stefano froze, eye wide. He could feel himself paling. Someone should have taken his portrait, just then.

He had been betrayed. Theodore had promised him freedom, from this man in particular. He had been promised such great things. But he had been given something worse than death. 

Finally, he moved, stepping forward, going as far as he could, hoping it was far enough. He could hear Paolo behind him, moving in his own ways. Stefano had to reach Lily and he knew he was leading the way to her, but he had to keep her safe, at least from Paolo. 

That thought almost stopped him, almost made him leave the theatre entirely. Why did he have to protect her? She was the Core, a source of power, not a friend. Stefano didn’t have friends. The thought confused him, this desire to keep her safe was so strange, so wrong, that he took a wrong turn, appeared in the middle of the crowd downstairs. 

The gasps and exclamations drew Paolo’s attention, both to him and hopefully to distract him. Stefano stepped again. 

He reached the stage and behind it, hoping he had enough time. Lily was sitting at one of the tables, but she looked at him, studiously, as he arrived, scanning his face before recognizing his own trembling fear. She got to her feet and ran towards him and he could see the strangest thing in her face. Compassion. 

Stefano fell to his knees, taking her by the shoulders, not letting her get too close. As much as he would enjoy her calming nature at the moment, he couldn’t. He couldn’t let him have her. 

“What’s going on?” she asked, his fear spreading into her. 

“No time for that,” he shook his head, not caring how it dislodged his hair. “I need you to run, Lily. I need you to hide.”  
She nodded, looking past him. Paolo wasn’t there, not yet. 

“You know how to call Obscura?” he asked.

She nodded again. 

“Good, call her if anyone you don’t know finds you.”

He released her and she ran, as fast as her short legs could take her. Stefano inhaled, the breath heavy and grounding. He stepped forward, heading back towards the door. As much distance as he could get between them the better. 

He opened the doors to the lobby finding Paolo right in front of him.

\------------------

Something was wrong. It was too quiet. There were those creatures, and in numbers, but where Sebastian had found a few people running off, getting killed by the dozens, or could hear them hiding away, there was now no one. Without them, the creatures didn’t have any reason to conglomerate. They were spread out. Easier to kill, easier by far to get around. 

That eye in the sky was still shining brightly, still pointing his way to the theatre. 

\------------------

Stefano’s wrists were slick with blood. His ankles too. His eye was everywhere, nowhere, searching. Paolo was there, taking up everything, ruining everything. 

Stefano grit his teeth. He couldn’t look anywhere else. Paolo was everything. 

“Relax,” the doctor crooned, “this is for your own good. Everything I do is for your own good. You can’t be trusted by yourself.”

Stefano squeezed his eyes shut. He whimpered, like a dog or a scared child, a sounded he’d never wanted to hear himself make again. He didn’t know how this was happening to him, not again. 

“You kept the girl, you were supposed to hand her over,” Paolo explained, far more calmly than Stefano’s pulse. “You brought this upon yourself.”

Stefano sobbed, bloody hands scraping against the smooth metal of the gurney. He tried to pull his legs up, shove his thighs together, but that just cut his ankles deeper. He couldn’t see, he couldn’t move. He couldn’t do anything against this. 

At least Lily was safe, wherever she was. 

\----------------

There was nothing to stop him from entering the theatre. He was expecting something, a gate, a puzzle, a photograph. There was nothing. There was a ticket booth and elegant doors, but no monsters, no obstacles. Sebastian took a hold of his pistol. This smelled distinctly like a trap. 

When he reached the door, he leaned against it, listening. He could hear people, a lot of them, murmuring on the other side, a few yelps of gleeful surprise. It was strange. It sounded like too many people, more people than he’d seen surviving in Union so far. 

He remembered that Resonance point, the one he’d found with his communicator. There were supposed to be a lot of people all herded to their deaths. He’d never found the bodies. He wondered if these were all of them. 

He opened the door, expecting the worst. 

\--------------

Paolo’s fingers were thick and the knuckles bulbous, knotty. Stefano always marveled at them, after they had been inside of him, whenever the drugs started to wear off. He had no chance to marvel now, as he writhed, back arching, mouth open in a silent scream. It hurt too much to scream. 

It was hot and cold and agonizing, feeling his fingers, shoving deep into him, into that wet hole, probing into him as if he was searching for something. Stefano wanted to pull away, to shrink in on himself.

This wasn’t right, this wasn’t what he was supposed to be. He was meant to be the master, the artist, not this weak thing. But he could hardly think, hardly imagine how exquisite he would look immortalized like this, agony and fear in equal parts, trickling out of his bleeding hole. 

“Where did you get this thing?” Paolo asked, though Stefano could hardly hear him through his own pulse, his own high pitched breathing, the suffering that tore through his head. 

He pulled suddenly, twisting, and Stefano could feel some of the cords in the camera apparatus snap. He stilled, suddenly, feeling a chill shove through him, a shiver through his skull, as the connections broke apart. 

“Oops.”

\---------------

There were real people in here, living, breathing people, and none of them raised a hand against Sebastian. Some of them looked like they were close to, their eyes shining this side of wrong, and he was sure more than half of them were about to turn. He asked them about Lily, showed them his burned picture, but none of them had seen her. 

With no other choice, he pulled out his communicator. It had worked to find her trail before, he hoped it would find her now. 

At first it was just footprints, lots of them, and he couldn’t tell the adult ones from the barefoot ones, so much smaller than the rest. When he did spot them, he sighed in relief, started to follow them. He went upstairs, all of the way up. There were gory images on the walls, ones that he didn’t think Lily should ever have to see and hoped that she wasn’t in any of them. 

He knew that Stefano had photographed her, had seen the picture for himself. He also knew that the sick bastard was stroking his ego with her fear, feeding off of her power. He was expecting to see him at any moment, to take a photo and throw him into some other strange dimension. 

He lost her trail for a while, but then found it again, heading back behind one of the counters, through a door. A coat check, with a good and strong lock. He smiled to himself. She was a smart girl, resourceful. 

He placed his hand on the red wood. “Lily?” he couldn’t help the hopeful note in his voice. He wanted to see her so badly. She had to be there, she had to be real. There was always the chance that this was all a wild goose chase, what he’d seen of her nothing more than a projection of what he wanted to see, but he couldn’t stand that thought. Mobius was evil, but they couldn’t be that evil. 

“Lily? It’s me; it’s dad.”

\--------------

“Where’s the girl?” Paolo asked. He no longer sounded so calm, so kind and considerate, an evil front of what he was. He’d asked the question so many times. 

He spread his fingers and Stefano thought that his throat would rip apart from the scream that tore from him. He didn’t know how many times Paolo had asked. He didn’t have an answer. Paolo was inside of him at both ends, three fingers in his sockets. 

He suddenly stilled, lowering his forehead so that it was resting against Stefano’s own. He could feel the sweat on his face impossible to tell apart from his blood, the hair clinging to it all. It was all so much more real that Paolo’s tender touch, which he knew would turn cruel the moment he admitted his knowledge of Lily. 

“Once you tell me, I can give you a reward,” Paolo started to bargain with him. “All of this pain will be done with, forever. We can be together, without any of this hurt between us. No more betrayal between us. Be a good little soldier and I can give you bliss, as you know I can.”

As if to prove his good will, he pulled his fingers from Stefano’s face, making him shudder and bite his lips once more. His hand, red and pulpy around his latex glove, went to a syringe, sitting on a small metal table. 

“You remember this, don’t you? How it felt?” 

Stefano’s dry mouth started to salivate, as his body tensed around those fingers still inside of him, his veins thrumming with a need he’d hoped that he’d suppressed. 

He knew, he knew every detail of how the morphine had coursed through him, had taken the shattered pieces of himself and put them back together, only to float lifelessly upon a river of his own mind. 

As much as he hated it, he craved it. 

“I don’t know,” he begged, hating himself for it. “I don’t know where she is.”

Paolo twisted his fingers, making his body jolt as they dryly scraped at his insides.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> been working a lot of really early hours which should lead to a lot of productive writing time but instead leads to being really tired. I want to get the next chapter up on Saturday!

Lily was crying softly and there was no confusing it, that was his little girl. She was in pajamas he’d never seen and her hair was longer, she was older, but that was her. He could hardly see her, hidden behind the coats. 

“Don’t be afraid, Honey. It’s me, Dad,” he promised, hoping that this time his words would hit home. 

She looked at him, her big eyes searching his features. “No,” she quickly shook her head, “No, you’re not! Dad is dead!”

Sebastian felt his stomach open up with despair. Right. He knew this was coming. Hoffman had warned him about it. They’d told him that Lily was dead, told her the same thing, anything to keep them from looking for each other. 

“Honey, I know that’s what they told you. But it’s not true! Lily, please… I…”

Her mouth closed in a line, she wiped away her tears. She looked serious now, more serious than Sebastian had ever seen her. 

“What about Stefano?”

A rock dropped into the open space of his gut. What about Stefano? He’d come here fully prepared to kill him, but Lily sounded like there was something else, like she was ready to stand up for the guy. Sebastian shook his head, trying to shake that notion out of it. 

“I don’t know where he is. Perhaps we can get out of here- “

“I know where he is,” she sounded angry, knowing what he was about to say. They could get out of here before he noticed. She didn’t want that. “You need to help him.”

Sebastian shook his head, this time for her. There was no way he was going to help that monster. He didn’t even know what it was that Stefano needed help with, but he doubted it was anything he wanted to be apart of. 

She started to cry again, louder this time. The sound hit Sebastian square in the chest, made his heart ache. He couldn’t stand to see Lily cry, not ever, and even with all of these years apart, he hadn’t gotten any better about it. 

“Please, he’s so scared,” she whimpered, “He’s so scared he had me hide away. I don’t know what’s happening.”

He reached out, wanting to comfort her. She accepted his touch without moving, as if he weren’t there at all. He didn’t know what to do. He wanted Stefano dead. He was willing to give him up to that guy in the military fatigues, but he didn’t want him anywhere near Lily again. Ever. Letting him live felt like too much of a mercy already. 

“You say you’re my dad. My dad would help. He always helps. That’s why he was a detective.”

Sebastian set his jaw, trying to be authoritative, trying to show that he knew what was best. He’d never been good at that with Lily. With rookies and criminals, sure, he was the boss, but Lily had always made him so soft. He couldn’t try to force her. 

“I’ll do what I can,” was the best he could promise, “but I’m not leaving you here.”

“I’m safe in here,” she argued, “Stefano told me to hide until it was safe. And I can call Obscura if I need to.”

She could do that? He ran his hand through his hair, only now realizing how grimy he was, his hair greasy, blood and dirt black under his nails. He must have looked terrifying. He was amazed that Lily wasn’t more frightened of him. 

“I want you with me,” he admitted, “Please, I don’t want you out of my sight again.”

She thought on that, bowing her head and putting a finger to her lip. It was an odd parody of something Myra would do, thinking on different cases, usually late enough that Lily should have been in bed. 

His heart as so warm, looking at her. He wanted to climb into that closet with her, hold her, but something was off in the room, some sort of tacky substance in the air. It was something she could use, her own power in here, and any sudden move from him could trigger it. 

“Five minutes. I’ll come get you in the theatre in five minutes, okay?” she nodded, coming to her decision. 

He sighed. Even five minutes felt too long to wait to have his little girl wrapped in his arms, after so many years of grieving for her. 

“Five minutes. Fine.”

And she smiled and everything in him shattered, all of his resolve, all of his strength. He darted in, ignoring the danger that he ma be putting himself into, and grabbed her, pulling her close, burying his nose in her hair. She smelled like STEM and that horrible fluid that he knew his body was soaking in somewhere and her old shampoo and like home. She was warm and real and not bursting into flames in his arms, like she had in so many of his dreams. She was hugging him back, not fighting him, and he could hear her breathing, her heart rate pulsing, the sounds he’d heard when he’d carried her, sleeping, from his truck so many times. He was crying, soaking her pajamas, unable to stop himself. 

She was alive. He could get her out. He just needed to wait five minutes. 

\--------------

Consciousness, while usually a boring moment only rarely made into a swelling orchestra of interest, was something that Stefano was glad to be losing. He did not know where Lily was and was glad of that, though that did not please Paolo. A warm sensation was consuming him, though it was taking it’s time, like being swaddled in a blanket, like being a child again. 

He hardly remembered being a child. But there was little pain there, if any, and now the pain that he was in was being snuffed out. 

He could still feel Paolo within him, though he’d finally left his eye socket alone to plunder other expanses of flesh, digging deep into his old scar tissue to pull at the thick shards that pressed into his bones. Now though, it felt like he was made of clay, and Paolo was sculpting him. He wondered what majesty he would be once the sculpture was complete. 

He wondered if this was what it felt like to be Obscura. 

He wondered nothing. 

\-------------

The theatre was empty, by all appearances. There were so many seats, all empty, and he had to check every row, paranoia eating at him. While there was no one he could see, no one he could hear, he still had a strange inkling that he wasn’t alone. He kept his gun out at all times. He wasn’t going to let anyone sneak up on him. 

He was almost at the stage when he decided he’d had enough of skulking around. “Hello?” he called out, his voice, hopefully loud enough to be heard from the other side of the deep red curtains, the same curtains that Stefano had used to lead him through the mazes of his spaces, to show him his ‘art’. “Stefano?”

That should have sparked the clicking of heels, the man striding in front of the curtain, as if the stage had been meant for him. The audience was here, at the very least. There was no art though, no blood, no theatrics. 

He gulped. He had promised Lily that he would do something about the man, but he was nowhere to be seen. He couldn’t afford to wait around. 

\--------------

“Hey, you hear that, my good little soldier?” smooth lips moved against his ear. Paolo’s voice trying to nudge him awake, back to where pain could find him. “Sounds like we’ve got an audience. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

Stefano murmured and tried to turn his head. He had no way of knowing if he succeeded. 

\-------------- 

The curtains parted and Sebastian raised his gun, ready to fire at whatever was on the other side. Another monstrosity, sculpted out of innocent civilians, wouldn’t be too far of an expectation. Stefano himself, with camera and insanity in hand was even more expected. The doctor was not. 

“Ah, there you are,” he smiled as soon as he was in view, standing before something that looked like a patient. His body was obscuring who it was, but Sebastian could see long legs on gurney, bared in anything but blood around the ankles, spread taut to either side and bound with zip ties. “You are too late, it seems, to hold up your side of the bargain. A pity. I was going to allow you to have a piece of him as a reward.”

“Him?” Sebastian grit his teeth, changing his aim for the man. He didn’t seem like too big of a threat. “You mean Stefano?”

He nodded, the small smile on his face not even shifting. There was blood on his left hand, a lot of it, and there had been splatters that traveled almost all of the way up to his elbow. He reached over to a small medical trolley, primed with gauze and sutures. 

Folded at the bottom of it was a suit and Sebastian’s mind started to roll into bad situations for that being there. He had no doubt that Stefano was the patient, but his clothes there confirmed it and Sebastian worried at what he would find of his target when this was all done. He didn’t want Lily to walk in on something she shouldn’t. 

His attention went back to the doctor when he picked up a scalpel, inspecting it for any imperfections. “You still may be qualified for a reward. Stefano has been very tiresome, with his boring screams and begging, I’ve heard all that before. I desired to hear something more interesting but maybe you’ll give me that satisfaction.”

Sebastian grit his teeth. No wonder Stefano had been so scared. This man, he’d known Stefano for a long time; Sebastian wondered just how much damage he’d caused the artist out in the real world. 

“Where is the girl?” he asked, gesticulating with the scalpel. 

So he had told her to hide, but not where. Lily’s story was holding true. He wondered what she meant by there being two of him, and if he could trust one. Sebastian didn’t like to wonder if he’d been right in his actions, in his decisions, that led to too many nights drinking and fighting even before he’d had the guilt of losing Lily. Now though, he wasn’t sure. He guessed he’d only been dealing with one of them. 

Sebastian shook his head. “There’s no way I’m telling you that.”

The doctor shrugged, as if it didn’t affect him one way or another, and then plunged the scalpel deep into Stefano, making his body spasm. He didn’t call out though, hardly moved in response, so he was probably unconscious. 

“Change your mind, for all our sakes,” he said, although he didn’t do much to sound persuasive. He was too busy pulling out a fancy knife, not as intricate as Stefano’s and definitely military, Sebastian just didn’t know which one. Sebastian didn’t bother to tell him that it wouldn’t be good for Lily’s sake. 

He was running out of time. 

He fired his handgun, aiming right for the man’s heart. He didn’t even move, didn’t flinch at all. The bullet tore into him and then lodged within, as sand poured from the wound. 

“Oh.” The doctor looked down at himself, feigning surprise. “That wasn’t very polite, was it?”

Sebastian corrected, aimed for the man’s head, and fired off a few more shots. He had to have a weak point somewhere.   
Instead of them connecting though, the man burst into a cloud of blood and sand, only to appear closer, much closer, and race towards him. Sebastian threw the handgun to the side, switching to the shotgun, firing as he drew. There was no time to aim. They were both down the aisle. The doctor let the hits land, did nothing to protect his face. 

Each hit made him lose a piece of himself. He was just sand, just heat. Sebastian was firing and running backward, trying to keep away.   
The doctor was faster. He grinned as he plunged the knife into Sebastian’s shoulder. Sebastian fired against his gut, hoping it would do something to slow him down. It didn’t. The man pulled the knife out, seemingly aroused by the gurgling groan that came from Sebastian. 

He dropped the shotgun, trying to switch to his crossbow. He didn’t know what would work though, what would stop him. He didn’t have time to experiment. 

The knife came down again, almost into the same place. Sebastian fell to one knee from the force of it.   
He didn’t know what bolt was loaded into the crossbow. It didn’t matter. He shoved the tip into the doctor’s gut and fired. 

He didn’t know if it was the effect of the bolt that did it or the world, but there was a terrible rumbling as the doctor froze, ice spreading up though his gut. Sebastian looked around, hoping the theatre wouldn’t collapse around them. It felt like an earthquake but, in here, Sebastian knew it was Union falling apart even more. 

The double doors opened, and Sebastian’s time was out. Lily was running into the theatre, eyes wide. The doctor was still there, even if he was frozen he wouldn’t be for long. He was going to have her. 

But the doors behind her melted, turning white as they did so, and something walked through. Lily hadn’t noticed it yet, had her eyes trained on Sebastian, but he was staring, mouth hanging open, at Ruvik. 

No, that wasn’t Ruvik. They walked almost the same way, both had long white coats with the hood drain, and were too pale to be living. This though, was a woman, nude other than some waxy substance that clung to her.   
In her wake were piles of ooze, not the right texture to be wax, but the fluid that Sebastian knew them all to be sleeping in. He swiped his handgun from the floor, aiming it at her. Even though he was aiming well over Lily’s head, it was enough to catch her attention, and she turned to see who had followed her. 

“Come to mother, Lily. I will protect you,” the woman said, and Sebastian knew that voice. She pulled the hood back and he knew, even with the veil of wax obscuring her face. Another ghost from his past. Someone in here, for him. 

“Myra?” he dropped his aim. He’d never expected her to be here. He didn’t know what to think of her being here. He didn’t know what she’d become but she was definitely something, something other than what she had come in here as. 

“Get away!” she snarled, “You can’t have her!” She threw an arm out, causing a wave of energy towards him. It knocked him back, back into where the doctor should have been, and then the destruction of the theatre floor made him fly back further. The ground didn’t so much shatter as it erupted, the hardwood flinging out of the way as that long white creature, made of ooze, made it’s way to the one beckoning it. 

It clicked at him menacingly, but did not move against him. It was more a guardian that anything else. And right now it was guarding Lily, holding her in one of its arms made of arms made of unknown whiteness. Pulling her and Myra down into whatever lay beneath Union, the darkness, the void, whatever place could exist outside of the town. 

Lily reached for him, but here, she was weak. He had no idea why she was so weak. 

“No!” he bellowed, running towards the edge, as if there was something he could do to stop it. 

The floor crumbled beneath him and he and the theatre around him, fell into the pit behind them, falling into darkness. 

\-----------------

The pain was what came first, fading in and out with his pulse, his aspirations. Most of it was the throbbing agony of his head, split through the eye. He was used to some pain there, hardly had a day without, but now it was worse, worse than when it was new even, subdued with the merciful lull of morphine. 

“You better not make me regret this.” There was a voice, gruff and pained, coming from somewhere. It was close. It came with hands touching him, and he felt his body jerk, all of his muscles tensing. 

No more. He wanted to beg further, not that it had worked so far. He didn’t think he could handle the pain continuing. The hands were on his face, as if to inspect the damage, and he tried to pull away, tried to force himself back down under the safety of unconsciousness. It wouldn’t hurt then, at least. 

The hands were soft against his skin though, so opposing to the voice. They were warm and calloused, by they touched him like he’d never been touched before, like he was delicate, like he deserved care. It made him relax as much as the darkness would have. 

Then the hands were gone and he breathed, opening his eye to see the man, his prey, pulling out a knife. It was the knife he’d given him. He stiffened again, wondering if this was it, finally, and the pain would be gone forever or if his prey was hoping to torture him as well, to try to get the girl that he had no knowledge of the location of. 

He went to Stefano’s feet though, bending down, and that was when he realized that they were standing. No, not standing, but definitely vertical. The gurney had fallen in such a way that it landed next to his feet and then leaned back against a stone wall. The area was smoky and distinctly orange and Stefano knew exactly where they were – Theodore’s dungeon.

Once his ankles were free, the man sliced through the ties on his wrists and Stefano stumbled forward, tried and failed to stay upright, and fell to his knees. 

The man was on him though, his warm hand on his shoulder, his eyes everywhere. Stefano hated it. Eyes belonged on the art, not at him, not when he was like this. 

“Hey, are you okay?”

Stefano put a hand to his face, both to conceal the hole and what was within it and to see just how bad the damage was. He grimaced, his head feeling as if the fingers in his socket had been enough to break through his skull. 

“I don’t know what I am,” he admitted, “but it’s definitely not okay.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this one is a lot less parts than the others, but it's still about 2500 words, so I think it can be a standalone chapter

He should have killed him there, tied to the gurney, barely conscious. He shouldn’t have let him go, shouldn’t have touched him with anything other than a hard fist.   
He’d wanted to, he was so angry, he wanted to beat Stefano’s face in until he was hitting the metal of the table behind him. 

But they’d landed here, not that Sebastian knew where here was, and Sebastian had looked at him, and was unable to lay a hand upon him. His anger had faded, as much as he’d willed it to stay, as he looked down Stefano’s body. He was wearing a hospital gown, but it didn’t hide much.   
Stefano was a mess. 

His entire side was rough terrain of scar tissue, pits with blue tinges deep under the skin in places. His hand was missing fingers, only his thumb and index still whole, and even those were pockmarked. His leg had the deepest holes of all and Sebastian wondered how he was even able to walk with the gash in his thigh that went so deep it looked like it had gone though bone. 

It was like looking at Ruvik, sculpted by a different catastrophe. 

He couldn’t hurt someone who was already hurting so much. He had to get him down, do something about this. His anger would come back, he’d beat Stefano down then. For now though, he had to get the scalpel out of his side and see to the other wounds. 

He was quiet, weak, and he did nothing to stop Sebastian from manhandling him onto one of the gravestones in the room. He kept his eyes down, let his hair stick into the bloody smear where one of them may have still been.

“I’m going to have to pull this out,” Sebastian explained, putting one hand on Stefano’s shoulder to brace him, the other lingered around his waist, an inch above the hilt of the scalpel. 

Stefano nodded, “I’ll do my utmost to not scream.”

Sebastian grit his teeth, putting his hand on the warm metal. He could see Stefano tense against it. “You might want to hold onto something.”

Without anything nearby he put on hand on Sebastian’s arm, the one on his shoulder. His eye was closed and he was breathing in shallow breathes, trying to ride this out. No point in making him wait then. He yanked the scalpel out feeling the skin of his arm threaten to tear under Stefano’s white knuckled grip. The guy was thin but that didn’t mean he wasn’t strong. 

Sebastian put his hand on the wound, trying to stop the bleeding, as he went through his gear. He only had one syringe left. He didn’t think Stefano exactly deserved it but he didn’t have any other options left to him in the moment.

When Stefano saw it though he was more tense then at the prospect of having a knife pulled out his body. He fell off of the gravestone in his squirming attempt to get away. His mouth had blood in it from keeping himself quiet and he looked even worse than before, but now he looked like a wild animal, desperate to escape him. 

“Hey, this is supposed to help,” Sebastian tried to calm him down, getting down on his knees, “it should heal you up. I’m not going to hurt you.” At that Sebastian paused. He had come with every intention of hurting Stefano, of killing him if necessary. He couldn’t believe how easily swayed he was. 

“No, not with that, please!” Stefano’s voice was higher than usual, his pupil fully blown. There was no talking to him in this state, no way to take care of him, “I’d rather you kill me here then use that!”

Sebastian put it away, keeping his eyes on Stefano. He calmed down as soon as it was out of sight, not fully, but enough that he wasn’t dragging himself through the grime on the floor, leaving a slick trail behind him. 

He looked around. In one of the empty graves was that doctor’s side table, the supplies having spilled out into the earth. Stefano’s clothes were also down there, no longer clean and well folded, but still whole. He took the lot of them out of the shallow hole, showing them off to Stefano. 

“How about these? A bit old fashioned, but they’ll work.”

Slowly, Stefano got into a crawling position, though his shaking arms could hardly hold his weight. “Yes, that will do.”

“I’ll come to you, don’t worry about it.” He stood and did as he’d said, letting Stefano relax as best he could.   
Sebastian wasn’t a medic and would never claim to be, but he’d had to have some basic training to be out on the field. He couldn’t do stitches and he didn’t have the tools necessary for that, but there was the chance that actual medical supplies would have the same magical effects that the syringes did. 

He was slow and steady as he washed the wounds in hydrogen peroxide, letting Stefano hold onto him in that vice-like way if he needed to. The wound in his side was the freshest and easiest to clean and he took care of that one first, having to hold Stefano down to keep him from squirming too much. His wrists and ankles were messy, blood caked around them, but they had been done by Stefano himself, his skin catching as he tried to tear himself away from the harsh plastic binding. There was enough gauze for Sebastian to wrap them in and Stefano was much less pained by his actions. 

He’d been keeping his head turned, his eye in shadow, all of that hair covering it. There’s been damage there before, Sebastian recalled how Stefano had walked by him while he was in hiding, the first time they’d interacted. He’d have to be careful about this. 

“Only one thing left, I think you know what it is…” he left the sentence open.   
Stefano shook his head nervously. “If there were a mirror I could-

“There isn’t.” It had been the first thing that Sebastian had looked for. Usually when he left his office there was an easy way back but that hadn’t been the case this time. Just that altar. “I’m going to have to take care of it. You’re going to have to trust me to take care of it.”

Stefano was stiff and shaking once more and Sebastian worried that he would pull away, try to drag himself through the filth like he had with the syringe. He bit his, still bleeding, lip and looked around the room, trying to find something else that could work, someway that he could take care of it himself. Eventually he sighed, caving in on himself a little bit. 

“Fine.”

Sebastian raised a hand and Stefano planted a cheek in it, letting Sebastian hold his face in place. He brought up a hand and pulled the hair away, wincing as strands slid through blood and gore, and held it out of the way. 

The hole was a lot worse than Sebastian had been able to guess at, the blood drying enough that he could see something of it. There was an iris in there but it wasn’t moving, wasn’t reacting with the panic of Stefano’s good eye, but there was still an eye in there. Sebastian didn’t exactly know how since there was a massive hole right next to it and the iris itself looked like it had been yanked in different directions. He couldn’t even tell what color the iris was supposed to be. 

He was as delicate as he could be, washing away the blood on Stefano’s face before reaching for the eye itself. Stefano was pushing against his hand, shaking so badly it looked like he was about to break, but he was quiet and as still as he could be. Sebastian found himself praising that and hating himself for it. He sometimes hated how comforting he was, subconsciously. It was good when he was calming down a witness or when he needed to get a criminal to trust him, but this was neither of those situations. This was a villain that he didn’t want to see behind bars, an absolute monster who had torn people apart and reshaped them into monsters, who saw people as nothing more than an audience or an art medium. 

He winced and started to pull back when Sebastian got to his eye proper, no longer able to hide his pain. The sound was a sharp intake of air and a long whine as he tried not to scream. His fingers were scrambling, chaotic, those in his hair releasing some of it and pulling out more. Sebastian soothed with his words, pouring the peroxide onto the eye directly. 

Stefano shuddered, back arching, and the whimper that came from him, the groan, so measured in volume, made Sebastian’s heart hurt for him. The last thing he wanted right now. He worked as quickly as he could, whispering to Stefano all the wall, bandaging what was left of the eye and letting the man go. 

As soon as Stefano was free from him he was away, both mentally and physically. He was in a corner of the room, past one of the graves, so fast that Sebastian didn’t know how he’d done it, though there was none of that blue smoke clinging to him. He was curled up in the fetal position and everything about him said ‘don’t touch’.

\--------------------

He wanted to be sick and, truly he didn’t know how he’d kept from it so far. The world was a burning hot thing and he was in it, against his will, about to be torn asunder for his misdeeds. And there was the man, the one he’d been hunting and been hunted by in turn, the one who wanted Lily for himself, even though he didn’t even know what she was, right there. He’d taken care of Stefano. He’d looked into the ugliest part of him, physically, and done what he could to heal it. 

He’d thought that they were enemies, but the man had not acted as such. He wanted to know why, seeing as how he’d aimed a gun at him more often than not. He was easy prey, as of now, easy to subdue, to torture, to kill, and he’d expected nothing else from the man. 

He approached, holding a bundle of clothing. Stefano was nude and hideous and vulnerable, and he didn’t even hear what the man had said before he was grabbing them, on his feet for a moment before he fell back against the wall, his suit, crumpled and uncared for, trapped against his chest. 

The man was kind though, stupidly so, in turning his back to Stefano so he could change. It was a good way to get a knife against his throat, but no, Stefano would not. He could feel his power diminished, both due to the damage he’d taken and the fact that this was Theodore’s. He was almost as weak as a normal person, which made him feel even more vulnerable. 

He got into his clothes as quickly as he could, though they were much more difficult than he’d remembered. He was fatigued and every motion hurt. His pants were easy enough, his shirt was much less so, but he was able to get it over his shoulders after a time, and his jacket was just the same as the shirt. The scarf he just let hang over his chest. Buttons and gloves were near impossible, and the bandages on his wrists wouldn’t allow the gloves to go on anyway so he shoved them into a pocket. 

He forced a smirk onto his face, brushing his hair back into position. “You may turn around, I am, at the very least, decadently decent.” He tried to lean on the wall instead of rest against it, in a look that people would consider brooding and artistic. Play the part, make people think you were alright, don’t let judgement get to you, those were all thoughts that Stefano had learned to embody. 

The man looked him over and shook his head. He wasn’t an actor, he was a presenter, and the main things he presented were beauty and pain. It only made sense that his own would be hard to hide. He was all seriousness as he walked over and Stefano’s smirk fell. The man’s face was unreadable and Stefano was still weak and unable to defend himself. Whatever he decided to do, Stefano would be unable to stop him. 

He stopped right in front of Stefano and he reached out to him. Stefano felt himself try to shrink away, become small once more. There was no escaping him. He couldn’t step forward, not with how weak he was, without falling on his face. His warm hands went to Stefano’s shirt and pulled it closed. His brow was furrowed his attention only on his buttons, as he did them up. 

Stefano didn’t know what to do, to push into that touch and take the comfort of his warmth or to shy away from it. Being available would be a boon to him, so he went for the former, noting how the man focused harder, as if that would hide the blush in his cheeks. If he was usable, if he had a purpose, he would be able to get out of here. 

“You need me,” he explained, as the man got close enough to his neck to strangle him, “This place is like a maze, you would have no chance at escape. And if you did, oh, he would do his best to command you. Trust me, he is very commanding.”

“I’m guessing you know the way,” the man growled, as if trying to control his vocal inflections. 

“Of course. He had me under his thrall, after all.” 

“And who’s he?” The man still wasn’t looking at him, even now that the buttons were all done. He wrapped an arm around Stefano’s waist and placed Stefano’s arm over his shoulders. Like this he was able to maneuver Stefano easily, get him away from the wall and over to the stairwell.

“He thinks himself the master of this place. He is the one who hired me to capture the Core. He thinks himself a God.”

“And does he have a name?”

Stefano licked the blood from his lips. It was always a worry, in this place, to say his name. Speak of the devil and he shall appear and all that. 

“He calls himself Father Theodore.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is really long because I wanted to get past it. It's almost all filler but there's some character/relationship development at least. Sorry there was only one update this week, I've been really busy and my brain and body are fighting me a lot right now!

There was a corridor, under an archway, along one wall. It was the only way out of there, or the only way further in. Stefano didn’t fight Sebastian as he maneuvered them both underneath it, but they’d only gone a few steps when the world shuddered and burst into light, the fire burning cracks through Sebastian’s skull. 

He grabbed his head, grunting as he stepped back, a voice in his head, around him, part of him. 

“Welcome seeker. You have come for answers. I am here to help you.”

\------------

“Welcome home, Stefano. You have come for retribution. I am here to give it to you.”

Stefano grit his teeth from where he’d fallen, crumpled in a heap at Sebastian’s side. The light went away and the world went back to normal, as normal as it could be in his dungeon, anyway. Sebastian looked down at him, rubbing his temples, an apology in his gaze. 

“Who… What was that?” he asked, reaching down to grab Stefano by the elbows, hoist him back up to his weak feet. 

Stefano leaned against him, chest to chest, his chin digging into the other man’s shoulder. 

“That’s Father Theodore.”

\-------------

He’d heard that voice before, just once, on his communicator. He wondered what it meant, what this guy was planning. Whatever his answers were, Sebastian was sure he wouldn’t like them. 

They made their way down a bit further down the corridor before finding a trail of still wet blood, leading the way to a door and a well-lit hole in the wall. There was a symbol on that door, a symbol that Sebastian had never forgotten, one he didn’t think he ever could forget. It was like a cross and an eye combined. 

They made their way down the steps, Stefano slipping slightly in the blood, breathing hard. He’d heard the voice too, though Sebastian wasn’t sure they were hearing the same words. 

There was the sound of breaking glass and the chandelier, full of flame was falling. There was a hard hand around his waist and then a step forward, towards the danger, and a hiss of pain. 

\--------------

“What the hell was that?” Sebastian was demanding some kind of explanation instead of showering Stefano with praise, which really should have been what he was doing considering how much pain he’d put himself in for that little task. 

He looked behind them, into the corridor they had just left, to see the flames sputter out across the floor. “I think…” he breathed, “I just saved our lives.”

Sebastian looked around the room, giving Stefano a moment to cling to his head, right where his eye had been. He didn’t know he could step forward when he was feeling so weak nor if the camera eye was covered. He could, but it had taken a lot out of him, too much. 

“Oh shit…” Sebastian exhaled, leading Stefano to a seat beside two racks, both of which had old corpses still stretched out on them. Stefano took the seat gladly but paid no mind to the hideousness around him. It was the difference in appearance between work and play. It seemed to upset Sebastian much more though. 

“Looks like they were burned alive.”

\--------------

The room was full of corpses and blood and torture devices. Of everything so far, this reminded him of Beacon most. Killing for the sake of killing. He glanced at Stefano, a killer as well, who looked like he was more concerned about his bandaged up eye than the cruelty around them. He’d had a cause to kill, for his art, but that wasn’t a real cause to Sebastian. It was still murder for the fun of it. 

“Torture devices. This place is almost medieval.”

He tried to distract himself from it, look at the bodies, try to find clues, try to learn something. All he was finding was that he hated having Stefano’s eyes on his back, when he didn’t know what he was thinking about. He hadn’t shown any signs of wanting to kill Sebastian since they met at City Hall, but he’d been hurt and weak and impossible to read. He didn’t even seem like the same person right now. 

A few more steps towards the stairs, going down. Something told him he didn’t want to go down, and there was a scream. A few of them, all of a woman, sounding more terrified than hurt. 

Still Sebastian was rushing down the steps, faster than he should have. 

“Sebastian!” Stefano called out, coughing once it was all done. 

Sebastian paused. He had to help that woman, Stefano was just going to slow him down. But Stefano knew about Theodore and he needed that information. 

He kept coughing and Sebastian turned, saw him doubled over on the stool. Once he was done he straightened up somewhat, still weak. He wiped at his mouth with the back of one hand. 

“He wants you to rush off, to separate us. It would be easier to seduce us that way.”

“Seduce us?” Sebastian squinted, speaking through his teeth. “What are you talking about?”

“That’s how he works. He has no creativity, no fighting prowess. Instead he recruits others to do it for him, plays with people’s minds to get them to do what he wants.” He was interrupted by another burst of coughing and there was no way Sebastian missed the splatter of blood he wiped off on his trousers after. “He will tempt you with something you want, no matter how impossible.”

“She sounds like she’d in trouble,” Sebastian sighed, looking back down the steps. 

“If anyone here is still alive I would be very surprised.” Stefano pulled himself up from the stool, clutching the table of gore to do so. On his feet he staggered. He wasn’t going to be able to walk on his own still. It seemed worse than just the skin being cut open by his own struggling and that coughing, the blood in his mouth, had Sebastian worried.

\----------------

Sebastian was a good man, that was something that Stefano had learned upon waking with him, though being good was not necessarily a good thing. He wrapped an arm around the man’s shoulders, leaned against him. He was going to slow Sebastian down, make it harder for him to get through the battles to come, but Stefano could get them out of danger in a pinch, knew the area, and knew Theodore. As long as he didn’t give it all away too quickly, he wouldn’t be abandoned here. 

Together they struggled down the stairs, towards that sound that had Sebastian so concerned. It hit something in Stefano, aside from the oddness of such a thing, caring for a ghost instead of yourself, something that he didn’t know much about. He’d learned in war that caring for others, especially when they did not consider you their brother, was just a way to get hurt, to watch them die and know that if you died they would feel nothing. 

There were a lot of stairs and Stefano felt his legs closer to collapsing with each one. He clutched Sebastian’s shirt, staring at his own feet. If he did fall, he wouldn’t do so alone, but he hoped Sebastian was strong enough to keep them both upright. 

At the bottom of the stairs was another corridor, the ceiling lower, the crosses of those who had come here to be folded into the flock and failed hanging from the joists like warnings against failure. They were beautiful, in a way, the layering of them like silken lace, each one a testament of faith that was disregarded for the hope of being one of their new god’s disciples. 

He knew this place. Not terribly well as he’d been allowed to retain his own individuality within Father Theodore’s congregation instead of losing his mind to his will. 

He wasn’t forced through the bodily modifications, the purging or the rebuilding, like all of these had. He still recognized the dungeon when he saw it though. It was hard not to. 

There were cells along all of the walls, more of those hanging candelabras, and a whole aesthetic of filth and degradation. The cells were all locked and those within were all too busy repenting in their own individual ways to notice the two of them wandering through. 

Nothing tried to stop them until they got to the crank, what should have let them through the massive gate. 

“Need a crank handle to turn it…” Sebastian noted, looking it over. 

Stefano sighed. He almost wanted to ask Sebastian to just leave him there by the door while he searched for whatever part he needed. He was tired and aching and he was certain he was still bleeding somewhere. There was the chance though that Sebastian would need his assistance and he would give it, as long as it allowed him some further security. 

\--------------

Nothing in this place could ever be easy. He dragged Stefano through the area, it looked like Bedlam, or some other horrible prison that should never have existed. The cells were full too, though those within couldn’t do anything about them yet. 

He could feel how tired Stefano was and he too needed a rest. He didn’t think there was a chance of a nice comfy safe house down here though. He would have been fine if he could just get a comfortable chair and a cup of coffee. 

There was one room, slightly apart from the rest, where he found another crank, exactly lie the first, but this one had a crank. He leaned Stefano against the door as he went up to it. He would need both hands to pull it off. 

“Looks like I can use this,” he smiled slightly. Progress was progress after all. 

“You do realize that releasing that will release all of them, yes?” Stefano grimaced, eye following the lines of chains going through gears. “We’ll be swarmed.”

“You got a suggestion?”

Stefano pouted slightly, moving out of the way of the door, as if wanting to approach Sebastian but being too afraid to leave the support of the wall. “Aside from you doing the decent thing in using complete sentences? Traps might be a good choice here, or you could always give me a gun.”

Sebastian raised an eyebrow. Stefano couldn’t have been serious. “You ever fire a gun before? And I don’t mean at point blank range at some poor sonovabitch who’s tied to a chair.”

The smile that spread over Stefano’s face was, in a word, evil. It was curled just right, showing just an ounce too many of too white teeth, for any bit of comfort. “I believe you would be surprised.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you shot me, either.” Sebastian shook his head. There was no way he was falling for this. He did open the door though and switch to his crossbow, firing off as many rounds as he could without crowding them too much. Traps weren’t a bad idea. 

“So you would rather me be completely at your mercy, defenseless to the world, than to allow me to aid you in some small way?”

Sebastian looked him over once more. He looked like he was about to collapse. “Even if I did give you gun and you didn’t immediately betray me, I don’t think you’re in fighting shape right now.”

\----------------

Stefano sighed but didn’t push the issue further. It was his own loss, really, to not see how good Stefano was with a gun. He patted himself down, chilling when he realized that he didn’t even have his knife on him. He’d thought that he’d at least be able to keep those Neanderthals off of him with it. But no, he truly was defenseless. 

There was something on the wall though, something shining. He started to move towards it, watching as Sebastian yanked the crank off of the mechanism, his muscles rippling where his shirt had been rolled up to the elbow. The chains, predictably, started rolling as well, and the cell doors started to open rapidly. 

He could hear the bursts going off, the traps Sebastian had laid triggering, and wished he had his camera. Even though these creatures did not make excellent models, explosions were always so grounding to photograph. The burst of blood and earth and shrapnel took him back to his roots, made him feel younger and more alive. Sculpting and making new subjects was all well and good, but it was a slow process. He much preferred getting in close, photographing things that would be lost in a moment. These moments were hidden by a door, unfortunately. 

Sebastian’s aim was on that door, his gun raised in decent enough form. Stefano ripped the harpoon bolt out of the wall and readied himself as well. He would make himself useful, he would make himself dependable. Sebastian wouldn’t be able to get anywhere without him. 

Things went quiet after a while and Sebastian took a step, heading towards the door. Stefano hissed. There were more out there. He knew that, Sebastian must have know too. Sebastian just glared at him and kept going though, although he did open the door more slowly and peered out. 

The corridor was, predictably, filled with corpses and craters and dust. Sebastian fixed Stefano with a look which he took to mean ‘stay put’ and that was only an order he was thinking of taking because he was so tired already. He did drag himself to the doorframe though as Sebastian went through, wandering through the dead to see if there were any living beyond. 

He didn’t notice the one that was still alive, climbing up to his feet. Stefano wanted to call out, to warn him, but that would put them both in danger, let these things know where they both were. It clamored to its feet, sneaking up behind him. 

Stefano glanced at his own bolt. He didn’t have a way to fire it, was planning on it just being a last minute weapon, similar to a spear or dagger. He couldn’t throw it at something. 

Sebastian wasn’t paying attention. He was distracted. He didn’t realize it was right behind him. 

It stretched out its hands. Sebastian kicked out, grunting, as the thing gripped him by the throat, hands tight, fingers digging in. He was struggling, dropping his gun as he tried to pull himself free. 

Stefano didn’t have much time. He didn’t have many options either. 

He stepped forward, shoving himself up behind the creature, behind Sebastian, moaning as he did, the pain in his head flaring. He shoved the harpoon bolt into the thing’s head, shoved it deep, as he staggered and fell away, pulling the hot corpse off of Sebastian’s back. He fell, taking it with him. 

Sebastian was coughing, rubbing his throat, drawing attention. After a moment though he was done and he pulled the warm body off of Stefano, hoisting him to his feet. 

“Thanks, I. I should have seen that,” he admitted. 

Stefano smiled, although he didn’t feel like it. He didn’t feel like doing much right now aside from resting. “Perhaps, if someone had given me a gun.”

“No way,” Sebastian shook his head, still so certain, “You okay though?”

“I’m in one piece, certainly.” He looked himself over. He still felt drained but not as badly as he had the last time he’d stepped forward. He had to realize that it was Sebastian who had taken up so much energy last time. It was more than just his hurt and the obscuring of his eye. “I should be alright.”

\---------------

A hallway. It was easy enough to get Stefano to just sit in one place while he explored the cells. He must have been more tired than he was letting on. Sebastian didn’t blame him. He had a feeling that Stefano was pushing himself, more than just by using that weird teleportation thing. This place was insane, not pushing yourself could get you killed. 

When he returned to him, pockets now filled with ammunition, he was lying down on a mattressless bed, asleep. Sebastian sat next to him, just looking at him. He didn’t look like a mass murdering psychopath, not like this. He just looked, normal, hurt sure, but normal. Attractive even, if he wanted to waste his time thinking about such things. 

His hand was halfway to Stefano’s face, to move an out-of-place hair, when his shar blue eye opened, staring up at him. Not asleep at all, just resting. 

“You ready to go?” Sebastian asked, trying to play off his motion, returning his hand to his own lap. 

“I had believed I was waiting on you, truthfully.”

Stefano pulled himself up into a sitting position, putting that arm back around Sebastian’s shoulders. Still too weak to walk on his own then. Sebastian helped him up and out of the cell, only to head to the end of it, hopefully to the end of this place. 

The door just looked like it went to another cell but when Sebastian kicked it open it was a corridor instead, leading towards a ladder going deeper still. That was going to be fun to figure out. He didn’t have much time to think about it as another bright flash of light cracked through his head. 

“You must go deep to find what you seek. Only by descending can you rise again.” 

\-------------------

“You must know your own failings. Only by reflecting can you attempt to find my side.”

Stefano clung to Sebastian’s side, not falling to the ground this time. 

“What’s going on?” Sebastian grit out.

“You are hearing it, but you are not hearing what I’m hearing,” Stefano explained, “I doubt he’d have us hear the same thing.”

“Why is he doing it?” Sebastian let him go at the top of the ladder, looking down it. It didn’t look like it would hold both of their weights. “More importantly, how?”

Stefano shrugged. “To show us he can, I suppose, although I would not be surprised if it was just because of his own fixation with his voice. He’s proficient with getting into one’s head, finding what he wants. He’s talking to us to try to see how we’ll respond to his offers.”

“Well, we can’t respond to anything until we get to him,” Sebastian turned, starting his decent. “You think you can handle a ladder?”

The whole thing creaked under Sebastian’s weight. “Only if you are certain you can catch me.”


	10. Chapter 10

“Come on,” Sebastian’s arms were extended, waiting for him, “I’ll catch you.”

Stefano was still on the ladder and Sebastian could see how his arms were shaking, trying to support his weight. He couldn’t climb back up, not on his own, and there was no other way down. He could see Stefano breathe, tight controlled breaths, calming himself down. Sebastian had no reason to catch him, they both knew that, and he could see Stefano calculating it, trying to decide whether or not to trust him. 

He inched closer to the wall, letting his hands rest less then an inch away. Stefano sighed. 

“I’ve got you.”

Stefano closed his eyes and allowed himself to drop. Sebastian gritted his teeth at the contact, trying not to drop him, to betray that trust he’d just gained, but his knee folded from Stefano’s momentum and they did drop a few inches. 

When Sebastian was back up he noticed the sweat on Stefano’s brow, the way he was breathing through a tight jaw. His hand skirted down his chest, finding and undoing the buttons of his jacket. One eye slowly opened as he pulled the material away from his side, finding it sticky. He’d bled through the bandage and his shirt. 

Sebastian held him close, tightening his grip under Stefano’s knees and around his shoulder. “Hey, you’re okay.”

“We’re almost out,” Stefano grumbled, looking up at Sebastian. “Just a bit further.”

Sebastian nodded and continued, not releasing any pressure, keeping Stefano against his chest, in his arms. It meant that he had to kick open the door and he couldn’t pull his gun out, couldn’t even respond when the lights pulsed into life and his headache burst through him. 

“You lost everything,” came that deep voice, “Your failure to regain it led to inaction, which led to inaction, which led to despair. And despair led to self-destruction.”

\----------------

“I gave you everything. Your failure to control it, control yourself, led to your own downfall, which led you to torment, which led to piteousness. And piteousness led to dependence.”

He could see him, Father Theodore, at the end of the hall, cloaked in light he was nothing more than a shadow. Imposing, intimidating. 

“Whatever he says,” Stefano growled, “it’s not true. He’ll say whatever he must to get you on his side. He has nothing real to give you.”

Sebastian kept walking forward, eyes steady. He didn’t seem to be afraid. Stefano wondered what Theodore was telling him. 

The world started to shift, as if it were Union breaking up, and Sebastian stumbled. Stefano wanted out of his arms, just to give him his footing, to let him have some better control. Being in Sebastian’s arms though, wrapped in his strength, felt terrifyingly good though, as if all of the pain in his muscles was slowly seeping away. 

“You don’t deserve redemption.”

\----------------

“You are your own downfall.”

He didn’t have time to react, to respond, to do anything, before he was being thrown back. He was screaming, clinging onto Stefano, trying to right himself in some way. It was like Beacon, when he fell and gravity changed and he was sent to the floor, over and over again, as if beating himself against the location would wake him. 

He landed, hard, against the stone floor and Stefano landed on top of him. It was almost enough to knock the wind out of him. 

Stefano was pulling himself up, off of him, with shaky legs, eye wide as he stared at the walls. Sebastian followed his gaze. 

\----------------

It was his voice, Paolo’s voice, that plagued him from every inch of this place, as well as his own, a whispering grimace behind all of the things he said. 

“You tried to run away.”

The words were blood, carved into the walls. 

“You thought leaving the world would save you.”

He didn’t want to look at how they dripped. 

“You thought you could be free of love?”

He bit the inside of his cheek, closing his eye. He felt stronger than he had since arriving here. 

“You thought you could be free of what you did?”

His legs weren’t shaking. He didn’t feel like he was about to collapse. 

“You are pathetic.”

He could feel anger, more than fear or shame, what Theodore wanted him to feel.

“You need someone to control you!”

He opened his eye to find the words everywhere, like they were meant to bury him. One wall was barren, other than that one last line. 

\------------------

“You didn’t believe your wife.”

The words were fire, burning through the walls.

“You refused to see.”

He could feel the heat of them, the weight hitting him, knocking him to his knees. 

“It’s all your fault.”

It was, he’d failed time and time again. He was so close, but there was Stefano and he had to help and now he was further away from saving Lily than ever before. 

“You are a failure.”

They weren’t just in Lily’s voice but in his own and it was because they were true. 

“Your daughter is lost because of you.”

He could have done something. He should have done something. He had been so close!

“You couldn’t save her!”

The words, his and hers, were a pillar of light, alone on one brick wall, a testament to his own despair. 

The words turned dark, embers, and faded away as Theodore spoke again, “You hold the key to ending your torment, I can guide you to the lock.”

The wall fell apart, the bricks rolling over one another, to form a door. On the other side, a vast darkness, a floor made of black water, and his house, alone in the distance. 

\-----------------

“You have the materials, the paints and the clays, let me inspire you.” The wall crumbled, the bricks turning to sand, taking the words with them to the floor. 

On the other side, there was more of it, as far as he could see, dark shapes rushing through it. He could hear bursts, gunfire, explosions. He could smell blood on the air. Something knocked into him, running past, into the field. Sebastian. 

“Sebastian!” he called out but Sebastian wasn’t listening, was running off ahead, into his own illusion. Stefano followed after him, not knowing where else to go. 

He could see the plummeting destruction, could see the blood clinging to the earth, could smell the death in the air. How long had it been? He realized that he was heavier than he had been in a long time, that he was back in his military fatigues, that there were guns and armor on his back. 

He didn’t want this war. He’d only gone for the photography, for the chance at a new life, for the chance of a life. It had all been a mistake. It had all led him here. 

He stopped at Sebastian’s side, wanting to put a hand out, to say something. Sebastian was just standing there but, there was something wrong. 

Sebastian drew his pistol and aimed it directly at Stefano’s head. 

\----------------

“You cannot change who you are. You can only embrace it.” 

Sebastian could see him, kneeling in the water. His shoulders were slumped, he was facing away from Sebastian, but his hands were raised as if surrendering. 

“Go toward it. Don’t avoid it.”

Stefano breathed in, heavy, as Sebastian sidled up behind him. “What is this?”

“There is a thorn in my side, as there is in yours. If it weren’t for this man, Lily would be yours by now,” Theodore explained, an omnipresent voice. “Remove him and I will take you to your daughter. He is the only thing holding you back.”

He raised his arm. He didn’t know why. It was out of his control. In his hand was a gun, his gun. He was aiming it directly at Stefano’s head. 

Stefano didn’t move, didn’t react. Sebastian’s hand was shaking, his finger sweating on the trigger. He’d wanted to kill the man, that was true, but now, here, he didn’t anymore. He was starting to believe Lily, that there were two Stefano’s. He’d had the opportunity to meet both and he didn’t want to lose this one. 

“Just one shot, and all of this will be over.” He was lying. Stefano had told him, Theodore would say whatever he had to to gain Sebastian’s loyalty. He didn’t have Lily, Myra did. They were both far away from here.

Flames started to take the house in the distance, but Sebastian could hardly move his head. It was just a burst of color out there, another lie. He’d never seen the house burn, but he’d imagined it so many times that it felt real. The liquid on the floor was not water, but gasoline, and the fire was racing towards them. 

Sebastian had to move, to get out. He had to do something before the flames caught them both. 

\-----------------

Sebastian was shaking, aiming at him. There was nothing that he could do. Between the gun aiming at him and the headache that felt like he’d already been shot, he could hardly move. The sand was starting to fade away, melt into glass and then into nothingness around them. It felt like they had all the time in the world and no time at all. 

“Your first step in reclaiming your true place is to destroy him,” Theodore explained. “Look how quick he is to turn on you. He is a threat to our plans. If you kill him, I will show mercy, and you can create once more.”

Create. Yes, that felt right. Creating got rid of the headaches, made him feel himself, made him feel powerful. 

There was weight in his hands, more than on his back, and the military fatigues had been traded for his suit, his knife, and his camera. He laughed to himself, feeling the headache fade as blood burst into his face, bulging from under the bandage over his eye. He pulled it off, letting his imagination consume him. 

\-----------------

The flames were taking over his vision. There was nothing else. He took a step back but there were flames behind him too. 

He didn’t know where to aim, where Theodore was, but he already wanted to shoot the guy. 

Stepping through the flames, as if they weren’t actually there at all, was a familiar shape. His head was down, he looked whole and unhurt, and both his hands were filled, one with a knife and the other with his camera. 

“This alliance has been entertaining,” Stefano stated, his suit pristine against the fire, “but even the greatest entertainments must come to an end.”

Sebastian raised his gun, in control now, using it more to keep Stefano away than to hurt him. He didn’t really want to hurt him. There was something wrong though, something had changed. 

“I commend you for your attempts. If blind hope were an artform, you would be a master. Not a-”

“What’s gotten into you?” Sebastian called out. This was looking far too much for a fight. 

Stefano raised his head then and Sebastian could see it. Even with his hair still hiding that eye he could see the raised scar tissue, pumping and stirring, as if there was something alive under his skin. It was all red and agitated, the blood so close to the surface. All of the textures in his face were exaggerated and the eye that Sebastian could see was focused, though it wasn’t focused on him. It was looking through him. 

He looked a bit like Joseph did, when whatever happened in Beacon took him over. 

“It doesn’t matter. He is giving me another chance. My work will continue.”

This wasn’t Stefano. Sebastian looked around for something, anything, to get him the upper hand. The flames had faded away, as had that dark world, and they were now in a similar space as before, a prison or a dungeon or catacombs. He backed away. 

Stefano aimed his knife at him, pulling his camera up to his face with that incomplete hand. “Your death will be art! It’s time to put a signature on it.”

He did that thing, where he took a step and was gone, hidden somewhere in the room. Sebastian could still hear him, was sure that he was still there, ready to gut him. This was the other Stefano, the first one he’d met. He wasn’t exactly like those things in Beacon, but he wasn’t like those things in here either. Regardless, he was going to kill Sebastian if he wasn’t able to figure out a way to break him free of it. 

A flash of smoke and Stefano was racing towards him, knife at the ready. Sebastian fired at him, trying for his feet, just enough to keep him away. It worked and Stefano was blue smoke again, hiding somewhere else. 

His mind was racing. He didn’t know how he’d been able to snap Joseph out of it. A lot of the time he’d just been able to do it on his own. He’d also been possessed and it had taken Juli shooting at him to force him back into himself. 

The knife was thrown at him and he dodged behind a pillar. The knife faded out from where it landed, back in Stefano’s hand he bet. He wasn’t going to shoot him. He wasn’t going to hurt him. There was something to him, something that made Sebastian want to care, when he was himself. He was vulnerable and hurt and broken so badly already, and Sebastian hated the fact that there was always some part of him that had to take in people like that. Myra and Joseph hadn’t been, they’d been strong, stronger then he’d ever been, but when they did show that weakness…

He shook his head, this wasn’t the time for that. Stefano was there, in front of him, racing him again. He was going to stab him, right in the collarbone if he had his way. Sebastian ducked his head and the blade ricocheted off of the pillar behind him. 

What was it that had broken him free of this before? It wasn’t pain, as Juli had fired a warning shot, not even hitting him. For Joseph it had been, though, it had been Sebastian hurting him. If he did that, he’d lose Stefano’s trust forever and he really needed it in this place. 

The next time Stefano chased after him, lunging for him, he let it happen. He grabbed Stefano’s arm as it went past, pulled him past him, and wrapped his other arm around his torso. It was early on in his training that he’d learned how to disarm someone with a knife, but he hadn’t had to do it often. Stefano felt as if he didn’t even want to be holding the knife. He dropped it easily and Sebastian kicked it away. 

He kept holding him, pulling him to the floor, wrapping his arms around him better. He was inviting danger, Stefano could make the knife come back to his hand, could freeze time, could kill him in so many ways. 

“I’ve got you,” Sebastian cooed into his hair, raising a hand to comb through his dark hair, “I’ve got you. Come on back now.”

\----------------

There was comfort and pressure and something else with a horrible name that he couldn’t think of without breaking touching him. He was on the ground, wrapped in Sebastian’s arms again, and he could smell his sweat and the dirt and his own blood. Sebastian was caring for him and he shouldn’t have been. Stefano could choke on it all. He didn’t deserve this, he shouldn’t have been given any of it. 

“Why?” he croaked, his throat feeling tight with an urge to cry, “Why didn’t you kill me?”

There was a long pause and he had to assume it was Sebastian thinking. There were so many good reasons for him to kill Stefano, but not very many for him to help him, even less for him to do this. 

“Lily asked me to help you,” Sebastian answered, his voice quiet, “I did and I thought that would be the end of it, but then I saw you, saw what happened. I knew I wasn’t done.”

“I can’t.” He stopped, raising a hand to wipe the blood from his nose, “I can’t control it. Something happened here, something, made me change. I don’t. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“But we stopped it,” Sebastian reminded him. He sounded so certain. He sounded like he knew exactly what he was doing. “I’ve seen it before, went through it myself. We just have to figure this out.”

Stefano pulled away, staring at him. He could see the worry there, in Sebastian’s face, see how his eyes went to the blood smeared against his lips. For a moment, Stefano thought that gaze meant something other than what it did. 

“I thought there was a reason that you helped me,” Stefano admitted, “Something other than altruism. I thought, perhaps, you were like Paolo in that, in wanting payment for your kindness.” He was hurting Sebastian, he could see it in his eyes, in the way that he was pulling away from him. He had no idea what hell Paolo had been. He didn’t want to hurt Sebastian, he wanted to be honest with him, as best he could be. “I thought that you wanted me around for your own reasons and pleasures. I am so, so glad to be proven incorrect.” Sebastian let out a breath. Stefano leaned forward, letting his forehead rest against Sebastian’s. “Thank you for caring about me. Even if I am not deserving of it, or I don’t show it as well as I should. Thank you.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> owo what's this? some self insertion? oops.

He was there, standing above them, looking down over his handywork. They were walking through a pool of blood, close to one another, seeing as how slick the flood was. Sebastian was ready to reach out, to grab Stefano if he had to, but he seemed to be doing better. There was a limp and a few stumbles, but they didn’t appear to be from any current pain. 

“Sebastian Castellanos. You’ve finally come.” He didn’t turn, didn’t respond to Sebastian pulling out his gun, aiming it straight for him. “I’ve been waiting for you.” 

Sebastian took a look over at Stefano, who was busy wiping at the dried blood under his nose, his head down, almost bowing. He wished he knew what Stefano was hearing. 

\-----------------

“Stefano Valentini. You’ve finally arrived. Theodore was looking down at him, eyes burning into him. He couldn’t stand it, couldn’t look at him. He had done so poorly, had disappointed him so greatly. Even though he was glad he had, it was still impossible for him to bear the judgement. “I had such hopes for you.”

He could feel Sebastian’s eyes on him as well, trying to read him. He picked at the blood on his face, feeling it itch. It was a good distraction, but not enough. Not from the headache that was trying to consume him, and not from Theodore’s gaze. 

“I had such hopes for you, such plans,” Theodore prattled, “I helped you become something of a God, gave you the audience you craved, and still you defied me.”

\----------------

“I hope that you will see me as an ally… friend.” 

Flames burst from the holy symbol, the one that Sebastian remembered, remembered from Beacon of all places, making it too bright for Sebastian to see. He threw his hand up, trying to shield himself, as if the flames were the glint of a mirror. 

“A lunatic with a god complex, huh?” Sebastian growled. He couldn’t aim, couldn’t even see Theodore like this. 

“Lower your weapon,” he cooly ordered. “Let us speak as of one mind. There is no need for you to fight your way through this, all brute force and intimidation. We have the same goal, Sebastian. We can help each other.”

That was something that Sebastian did not believe in the least. He did not lower his weapon.

“Join me.”

\------------------

“I believed we were of one mind, he explained, “that we could help each other. You were so close as well, but you betrayed me, all selfishness and drama.”

Stefano could feel the heat of the flames and of his own shame. He had fallen for Lily’s power, become tempted by it. He’d had no choice but to obey his own weaknesses. Theodore could never have done what he’d be able to do with her power. It would have been useless in his hands. He had no imagination, why couldn’t he see that?

“I will give you one last chance. You will be free from your demons and I will have the power of the core.”

\----------------

“You will be reunited with your daughter and I will have the power of the core.” 

Sebastian lowered his gun. Even if Stefano hadn’t told him that Theodore was lying, he wouldn’t have believed him. “I already know who has Lily.”

“Yes. And Myra won’t give her up so easily.”

\----------------

“You’re correct. I do not have her.” Honesty, for once. A surprise from someone like Theodore. 

“You are telling him lies, as you told me,” Stefano grit his teeth as much through anger as through the pain in his head. He wanted to make something beautiful out of Theodore. “You need to stop.”

“I need him on my side, or you,” Theodore explained, “I do not require both. Whichever one will be more loyal is the one that I will keep.”

Stefano closed his eye. He knew, of course he did. This was all a test. This was all for Theodore’s benefit. He wanted the man dead more than ever before. 

“Accept my offer. I can lead you away from your own self destruction. I can lead you to yourself.”

\---------------

“What?” all of his anger fell from him in his need to know, “Where are they?”

“I wish that I could tell you, but you are not ready. You must-

He was tired of this. He threw his gun back up aiming for Theodore’s head once more. “I said TELL ME WHERE SHE IS!”

Theodore didn’t bother to react, aside from being annoyed by the interruption. “Accept my invitation. I can lead you away from your own darkness. I can lead you to Lily.”

“Sorry, I’ve got other leads.” He chanced a look over at Stefano, who was seething with a rage of his own. If he had a weapon, had his camera, Sebastian was certain that he would be up there right that instant, stabbing Theodore to death. Unfortunately, the tools had been false and they had clattered into burning piles once he’d returned to himself. Sebastian was certain that Theodore was the one who’d given them. 

\----------------

“Never. I will not allow you to sculpt me to your will! Not again. You brought him in here, didn’t you? Insurance in case I didn’t obey your every command!” Stefano didn’t care about the headache. He didn’t care if Sebastian could hear him. He wanted Theodore to know that he knew. He wanted to dig his teeth into the man’s throat. 

“Farewell, Stefano.” Theodore raised a hand and flames sprang up from the floor, creating intricate patterns, surrounding them, reaching for them. “Perhaps for the last time.”

\----------------

“Farewell for now, Sebastian.” Flames burst around them, taking the floor and turning it into a maze of quickly closing walls. He could hear something, like running water, like a dam breaking. He turned, eyes widening as he saw it, the flash flood. Thousands of gallons of blood, rushing towards them, ready to douse the flames and take them with it. 

There was a flash of blue light, smoke. Stefano, moving. For a horrible moment he wondered if Stefano had left him, abandoned him here. And then the moment was gone and he was consumed, swallowed by red and then by darkness. 

\----------------

He was sputtering, wheezing, trying to get the blood out of his lungs. He could hear crying, a girl’s crying. She sounded distant, familiar, but so clear that she should have been right there. Stefano pulled himself to his feet and fell almost instantly. His legs were no good for this stuff. 

He looked around. He wasn’t covered in blood, at least. In fact there was no blood to be seen, other than the spattering that they’d both already had on their persons. Sebastian was still out, out hard, and even when Stefano shook him he didn’t move. He sighed, thinking that he’d have to sit there and wait, but there was more than just the sound of crying out there. 

He could hear those things, the creatures from Union, heading towards them. 

He grabbed a hold of Sebastian, threw him over his back, and stepped forward. It was hard, tiring to do, with Sebastian on his back, but he needed to do it. Even uninjured his leg was no good, and he could only go a few feet before he’d have to stop and readjust himself. It was almost enough time for him to recuperate from the expenditure of energy. 

The sound was coming from a little cabin, all alone in the woods. Those things were getting so much closer now. The door was barred from the inside. He couldn’t get in that way. With no other options, he went around to the back and smashed the window with a large enough stone. 

They were out there, snuffling, searching. He hoped that they weren’t also hearing the crying. HE laid Sebastian against one of the walls, wondering how he could wake him. He didn’t want to hit him or anything else violent. He didn’t have anything nonviolent to wake him with, either. 

Those things sounded so close. He didn’t have time to think. He reached around Sebastian’s back, taking his pistol, and around his waist for his knife. He smiled lightly in recognition of it, it was his own knife, after all this time, the one that he’d thrown into Sebastian’s shoulder. They’d come along way in the past few days. 

The window shattered and he turned, but it wasn’t one of them who’d come through. It was a woman, a soldier, her hair pulled back from her face and a gun in her hands. 

“Well shit!” her eyes were on Sebastian immediately, ignoring the gun aimed at her. “I guess everything’s really gone to shit then!”

Stefano didn’t take his eyes off of her, “Who are you?”

She turned, aiming out the window, “I’m the one about to save your ass. You see a little girl around here?” 

Stefano followed her lead, aiming out the window. “I heard one, but no.”

“Shit.”

\------------------

He could hear her crying, could hear Lily crying, before he’d even opened his eyes. Everything felt heavy, waterlogged, but he could hear here, could hear the gunfire behind her. When he was finally able to open them, there she was, his little girl, sobbing into her hands. They were in a cabin with broken windows and little to know furniture. Stefano was at the window, shooting, not paying attention to Lily. That was wrong, he should have had all of his attention on her. 

Lily moved, walking away, and she faded into nothing. “Wait!” he called out but he sounded so weak, even to his own ears. He reached out for he but his hand just dropped to his side. 

In her place was a woman he didn’t know, firing out of the other broken window, next to Stefano. 

“Look who finally woke up. About time!” she proclaimed, reloading her gun. 

Stefano glanced over, smiling, “Sebastian!” 

“We could use a little, oh shit!” 

Stefano had turned at the wrong time and now one of those Union citizens was in there with them, grabbing him. Sebastian reached for his pistol, only to find it missing. He grit his teeth, hearing the gun fall to the ground at Stefano’s side. His crossbow would be too slow, his shotgun would hit Stefano. The woman was thinking the same thing, her gun spraying and kicking back. There was nothing they could do as this thing bit into Stefano’s neck, tearing at the skin. 

There was a flash of blue light behind Stefano’s hair and he pulled out Sebastian’s knife, digging it deep into the creature. “Philistine!” he screeched, shoving the blade in over and over, until the thing stopped moving. It fell to the ground and he gave it a swift kick. 

“Obscura!” he called out, his anger still twisting his voice. 

The woman turned to fire into the incoming crowd. “You going to get up? We could use a bit of help here!”

Sebastian forced himself to his feet, dragging himself to Stefano’s side. Blood was gushing through his blazer and the shirt underneath, but he picked up the gun and fired in one movement, blowing up the head of one of the monsters outside. 

“Where’d a Union citizen learn how to use a gun?” she scoffed between blasts. “You’re a real sharp shooter.”  
Stefano grabbed a hold of Sebastian, hoisting him up so he could be of use in the fight. They leaned on one another, one in pain and the other exhaustion, to be able to keep going. 

“As outlandish as it may seem, I am military,” Stefano explained through his teeth, knocking down another incoming monster. 

“I thought all you guys had you memories wiped.”

“Is that what it was?” Stefano shrugged, letting Sebastian release a few shots with the shotgun to take down a single enemy while he reloaded. “I was wondering, since there are gaps. I suppose they didn’t completely wipe me, as they were in need of my imagination. A city cannot live without a heart.”

“Oh fuck, what in the fuck is that?” the ground shook, remaining glass falling out of the windows, as the woman aimed at something new, something at least three times the size as one of the other monsters. Sebastian couldn’t help but smile as he saw how Stefano grinned, almost manic, upon seeing it rush through a wave of enemies, squealing as she ran. 

“That is my masterpiece, my beautiful Obscura.”

“You know that thing?”

“I created her.” Stefano wrapped his arm around Sebastian, the motion intimate and so good. Even though they had been enemies, even though he was just putting Sebastian’s pistol back in its holster, Sebastian wanted more of it. He wanted to be touched. He hadn’t realized how starved of it he’d been the past three years. “our part of this fight is over.”

He was right. Sebastian and the stranger stood at the windows, just keeping their guns at the ready for a while, while Stefano wandered around the rest of the cabin. None of them even made it a few feet of the windows before Obscura was upon them, moaning and tearing at them with her barbed wire appendages. 

“What is that guy?” the woman asked, watching Obscura eviscerate one of the creatures. 

“He was after the Core, found it to,” Sebastian didn’t know how much to tell her. She was clearly Mobius, but not like O’Neal, more like Sebastian. Hired in to take care of a problem. “I don’t know if he had those crazy powers before or after he found it. Who are you?” 

“Esmerelda Torres.”

“I’m-“

“Sebastian, I know.” She left the window, heading towards the other room, where Stefano had already headed. The room was more of the same, with a large toolbox pressed against the door. 

“You do?” Sebastian asked, noting Stefano, laying in a tangle of angles on the couch, watching them casually. 

She didn’t pay Stefano any mind, just going over to the toolbox and shoving. Sebastian would have offered to help her move it, but she had it under control. Stefano was holding a hand out to him, from his place on the couch, and he went to the younger man, tempted to take the offered limb. Stefano had something for him, and he held it out, a red box teaming with bullets. 

“I procured these from the house,” Stefano admitted, “I believe it more than compensates for my use of your pistol.”

“I hate to say it,” Torres groaned as the toolbox came to a halt, “but I think we’d both be dead if it weren’t for you and your, uh, friend, out there.”

“A pleasure, to be of service.” Stefano smiled and it was more than just a polite smile. Sebastian could see the pride in it. 

“How did we get here?” Sebastian asked, helping Stefano to his feet. “Where even are we? And how do you know who I am?”

“No time for twenty questions. My safe house isn’t too far. We can talk on the way there, come on.”

\-------------------

Stefano stayed closed to Sebastian. He could tell that there was something off, even if it was just exhaustion. He hadn’t given the knife back and Sebastian hadn’t asked for it. That meant he was being trusted, for the moment. He didn’t know how to feel about that. There had been so many years in which he couldn’t bother to trust himself and now someone else, someone who was powerful and strong and had every reason to kill him was trusting him. 

They were talking but Stefano was only paying half attention. There was a lot of conversation about people he didn’t know, a Kidman and a Myra, but none of that pertained to him. He didn’t know them and he didn’t know much about Mobius either. 

He could hear Obscura running about, whooping and hollering as she went. He wondered if she knew where Lily was and, if Lily called for Obscura, if she could get there. He hoped that she could. 

They reached a dead end, the way back to the safe house. Esmerelda mentioned something about another way but Stefano just had them back up a bit, call to Obscura. She came charging and stomped on all of the rubble. 

“Well, that’s one way to go about it,” Esmerelda chuckled. “I guess that thing’s not too bad.”

Obscura thrusted and wailed at the praise and Esmerelda made a face. “Okay, I take that back.”

Stefano patted her side, looking her over. There were a few nicks and tears in her skin, but she didn’t seem to be too injured in their time apart. She crooned at his touch and brought down her head, nuzzling him carefully. 

“I know,” he whispered, “I’ve been gone from you too long. I wish I could have stayed with you, my dear. My world has just, it has been explosive mentally and physically, everything falling away. And I did not think you could fit into the obstacles we’ve been through.”

The others were still walking, still talking, and Stefano allowed himself a moment of weakness. He threw his arms around Obscura’s neck, feeling her own arms wrap around his waist, pulling him up off of the ground and holding him tightly against her body. He buried himself in her, his nose in the folds of accordion neck. 

Everything that he’d been holding in came crashing to the surface. He’d always been told he was bad at showing emotions, that he had no gauge for others, that there was something broken about him. He’d leaned to hide it. Better to not feel than to feel too much, to lie through being over emotional, to beg for pity with his own pain. But with Obscura he was alone. No on ewas paying him any mind. He could let it all go. 

And he did. And she didn’t mind. And they were traveling, her carrying him to catch up, before either of them really noticed.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> These chapters just keep getting longer and longer...

They were able to get through Theodore’s disciples, with Obscuras help, easily. She barely even cared that they were on fire and she stomped them out with a whoop of pleasure. Sebastian wondered if there was anything that didn’t show her pleasure. 

He took a look back, finding Stefano taking the rear, walking slowly but flashing and appearing a few steps ahead of himself. He looked distant, lost in thought, and his hand kept coming up to run through his hair, to rest over his eye. 

“Headache coming back?” he asked and Stefano lurched, falling out of whatever thought he’d been in. Torres didn’t even pause, just kept walking, her gun trained on both the disciples and Obscura when they got too close. 

Stefano looked at him, his mouth a thin line, and shook his head, “It never left, truly. I always feel like it’s about to come back full force.”

“Well, you’re fighting it and I know what to look for now. You shouldn’t have any more, uh, episodes, while I’m around.” It was honest, simple. He should have said that to Joseph. He should have been able to do that for Joseph. 

“You say that as if you’re planning on keeping me around.” Stefano’s lip quirked on one edge. 

Sebastian looked as his feet, trying not to let an errant expression show. After all they’d been through, he hated the idea that he actually kind of liked Stefano. If he really was a psychopath like Hoffman said, he was really not meeting Sebastian’s expectations of one. 

When he looked back up, Stefano was ahead of him, more trails of smoke. 

“Can’t you walk like a normal person?”

Stefano looked back but his expression was hidden by his hair. “Does it bother you?”

“A bit, yeah.” It made him look less human, more like something from this nightmare. 

Stefano pulled himself upright, straightened his back, and started to walk then, no disappearing acts. He’d only made it a few yards before his knee, the one on the scarred side of him, buckled, and he staggered, before flashing in and out of focus, standing up straight once more. 

Sebastian was on him in an instant, his hand at Stefano’s elbow, giving him a hand that he didn’t need. He was shaking slightly, a bit of sweat sparkling on his brow. “Okay, yeah, I get it. You move how you need to.”

Stefano was pale, looked like he was about to say something snarky, when Torres’ spoke up. 

“Well, that’s one way to do it. I was expecting a bit more stealth.” She leaned down and wrenched up the handle of a hatch, revealing her safe house underneath. 

“That’s Obscura for you, always a bit of a show off.” Stefano smirked. 

“Huh, I wonder where she learned that from,” Sebastian gave him a slight smile, dropping his elbow, and rushing towards Torres. The sooner they were in the safe house, the sooner they could talk, get some sort of plan. He needed to talk to Juli too. 

“What are you doing?” Stefano asked. Looking back, he hadn’t moved, was still standing where Sebastian had let go of him, and he was staring at the hatch as if he couldn’t understand it. 

“Safe house, come on,” Sebastian urged, watching as Torres hopped down to the cement floor below. 

Stefano blinked a few times, watching as Sebastian threw his legs down into the pit. “There’s nothing there.”

Sebastian squinted at him. “What do you mean there’s nothing there?”

Stefano closed his eyes, crossed one arm over his chest, and pinched the bridge of his nose with the other hand, letting his elbow rest on the crooked arm. He turned on his heel, paced a little bit, and wouldn’t look at where Sebastian was going. “I believe I was clear when I said there was nothing there. There is, absolutely, nothing. It appears to me that you are letting yourself into the grass and there is nothing but earth underneath. There is no safehouse, there is nothing down there.”

Sebastian looked down. Torres had started to walk off but upon hearing Stefano, she’d stopped, turning back. “Shit! Shit shit shit, I didn’t even think of that! Sebastian, he can’t come in here.”

“What are you talking about he can’t come in here?”

She put a hand on her hip, “He’s a Union Citizen! Mobius safe houses are safe because they keep Union Citizens out! So yeah, your little boyfriend is going to have to stay out. He can’t even tell it’s here, otherwise he’d be a liability!”

Sebastian grit his teeth, wanting to fight her, both for leaving Stefano behind and for the boyfriend thing. They weren’t together. There was no way that he’d ever think of being with Stefano, not when Myra was still out there. When he couldn’t at least talk to her, no, he wasn’t even interested in Stefano. He wasn’t interested in Sebastian either and, on top of that, this alliance was only built out of a mutual need to take down Theodore. They didn’t even have the same reasons for that. 

“Hey, where are you going?”

Sebastian pulled himself to his feet, “Just. Just give me a moment.”

\----------------

Stefano didn’t blush, he never had, though his ears did get a bit red sometimes. That word though, coming from Esmeralda’s voice from where he couldn’t even see it had his face heated all the same. He’d never thought about it, was too busy, but he was attracted to Sebastian. Once all this was over, if it was ever over, perhaps he would pursue something of the sort, but no. He could tell in Sebastian’s face, his scowl, as he pulled himself up out that illusion of the world, that there was no reason to pursue that train of thought. 

Stefano would have made a terrible partner anyway. 

“Hey, you gonna be okay if I go in there?” Sebastian asked and, while his scowl claimed that he was very heterosexual, his tone betrayed him, made Stefano think there might be a chance. He was so gentle, in tone, in the way he tried to read Stefano’s face. 

“I was fully capable of handling myself before we met, you know, I do believe I will be able to handle myself again for just a few hours.” He didn’t need Sebastian. He didn’t even know why he’d followed him this long. If anything it was because he didn’t know what else to do. 

Sebastian just looked at him, as if he was trying to read his mind, as if he was trying to get Stefano to argue, find some excuse to keep Sebastian from following Esmeralda. 

“Also, I have my lovely Obscura. I do worry though that she will run out of things to do out here. There can’t be many of Theodore’s followers around.”

“Yeah, okay,” Sebastian gave in. After a thought though, he reached into his holster and pulled out his revolver, opening the chamber and checking that it was fully loaded. “I don’t have much ammo, but you’re a much better shot than I am. I trust you’ll use this sparingly.”

He handed the gun over. Stefano slid his fingers over the barrel, metal cold against his skin. His fingers then traced along Sebastian’s over the grip. This meant something, meant that they were more than acquaintances. Sebsatian did trust him, trusted him not to just kill him, even though he could turn at any moment. 

“I understand.” He kept his eye and his voice down, taking the gun from him, “Thank you.”

Sebastian put his hand on Stefano’s shoulder, his heat pressing through his blazer. “I’ll be back.” He promised. 

Stefano didn’t doubt him. 

\-----------------

“So, what’s the deal with that?” Torres crossed her arms, her hip jutting out to the side, “What are you thinking picking up a Citizen for? And what’s with those powers?”

Sebastian scratched at the back of his neck, knowing that she’d think he was crazy for what he was going to say. He wouldn’t blame her, he’d think the same if he hadn’t seen what kind of shape Stefano was in. “Hoffman said that psychopaths can get that kind of power when they’re in STEM and I’d believe her too if it weren’t for, well Theodore’s insane but I don’t think he qualifies. Stefano… I’m not sure if he is or isn’t.”

“You met Hoffman?”

“Yeah, and a few others from the original rescue team. Most of them were dead when I found them. O’Neal and Sykes are my other two connections in here.”

Torres scratched at her jaw, “You ever think he could be lying? Pretending to feel more than he does? If he’s really a psychopath, there’s no way he’d get past Hoffman and into here without being a really good actor.”

“The guy wears his heart on his sleeve, from what I can tell,” Sebastian shrugged, pouring himself a cup of coffee. “At least when he comes to his art. He talks a big game, as if one person is a million, all there just to see his work.”

“He’s an artist?”

Sebastian nodded. The coffee was slightly burnt. “Not a good one though.”

She shrugged, “Art’s subjective. I wonder if that’s why they let him keep his memories?”

Sebastian raised an eyebrow. 

“In order for Union to work, like really work, people can’t know that they’re in a dream world. It all has to be real. So, Mobius wipes their memories, put them in here with just enough that Union fills in the gaps and bam, they’ve been here they’re whole lives, of course they remember their neighbors, they’ve been to that supermarket a million times, nothing is out of the ordinary. They need someone to do something specific in here though? Something creative? You can’t just shove someone in and expect them to be imaginative on a clear slate. That takes experiences.”

“Bad ones from what I’ve gathered.”

“Whatever memories he’s brought in with him? They’re bound to be exaggerated as they’re all he’s got left.”

“But that breaks down the dream world, lets him know that he can manipulate it.”

“I think we might just be onto a theory.”

Sebastian thought on that. He didn’t want to, but he had to ask. He didn’t even want to think about him. 

“What about doctors? Would they need their memories wiped too?”

“Can’t see why not, it’s not like your experiences alter your knowledge of how to set a bone. I don’t think you even need to set a bone in here, just think you need to. God, terminology is confusing.”

“You said it.”

So that didn’t explain Paolo, though he seemed to remember Stefano well enough. And he knew this place wasn’t real, he could change things, mostly himself, in similar ways. 

\-------------------

Stefano was exhausted. Three days, if not more, he couldn’t tell, he’d been awake, running around, hiding from Paolo, fighting against and with Sebastian. He couldn’t keep going, not at the rate he was, not without some sleep. 

There was an RV up the hill a ways, they’d passed it before seeing that priest with the flame thrower. He made his way there, only a few steps at a time. He’d been such a fool. He shouldn’t have shown Sebastian that, how weak he was on his legs. He should have fought the issue, just said that he preferred to move that way. 

But no, he’d always been too much of a show off. 

The door was locked, so he sighed and took a step back, looking through the windows instead. It looked appalling within, but he could see a bed, at the very least. That would have to do. He moved his hair out of the way and allowed his eye to gain focus, to zoom in and then he was inside, a flurry of blue smoke around him. 

He made it to the bed, kicking off his shoes on the way there. Outside he’d felt a bit more lively, his attention on what Obscura was doing, if Sebastian was coming back out soon. As it was, there was no one left, Obscura was near but not watching, and there were no threats in the immediate area. 

He could sleep. 

He took off his jacket, unsure if he should make it into a pillow or a blanket and chose the former. It wasn’t too cold out, not with the sun out. 

Time wasn’t working, not like it should have. It had been night for so long and now it was day with nothing in between. He could still feel the passage of time though and he knew it had been a long time since he’d slept. He didn’t even have the buttons of his shirt undead before he was gone. 

The world outside was so loud, so bright and warm, but it was all the wrong kind of heat, cloying and heavy dry and oppressive. Every time he opened his mouth sand or fingers would fill it, threatening to choke him. He writhed, unable to remove them, to cough, to leave the bed. 

The gurney. He was stuck to it, his flesh pinned down, bound with barbed wire, keeping him from moving. His head, as well was trapped, his oculus forced open, pinned in place so all that was inside would be exposed, easy to play with, to test, to manipulate. And there was a man, by his feet, ready to do just that, scalpel in hand. 

He wanted to call out, to sob, to get away, as the man in the long white coat climbed up his body, straddling him in the gurney. He knew what would happen if he opened his mouth, he didn’t want to see his face when he did so, he didn’t want to let him in. 

But it was Sebastian, not Paolo, he sat on him here, who spun the blade in his hand, observing him. Sebastian who was looking hi over as if he was so small and pathetic, a game of operation, a stuffed animal with too much filling, that he had to let some of it out. 

Sebastian’s hand cradled his jaw, pushing his hair away from his face. The motion was so soft, so gentle. Sebastian had only ever been so gentle with him. Sebastian had never hurt him, even though he was certain that he’d wanted to. For the girl, of course, he still didn’t know why he wanted her so badly. But now, he was tracing the oculus with the scalpel, dragging the tip just so over the frayed nerves to make him jump and writhe, cut himself on the barbed wire. 

Sebastian licked his lips, as if the sand was getting to him too, as if he was enjoying this. He released Stefano’s face, knowing he couldn’t move, to wrap his hand around his throat instead. 

“Seb…” he mouthed, careful, so careful, to not invite those fingers back into his mouth, “Sebastian…”

The fingers dug in, his throat tightening, as the scalpel dug deep into his socket. He cried out, thrashing, catching on barbed wire, slicing through and through, deeper and deeper, just as the blade probed, gouging. 

“Oh Stefano,” Sebastian groaned, sliding forward, leaning so his hardness was against Stefano’s stomach, rubbing against him, “you look so good like this.”

He closed his hand and Stefano went still. He could feel fluids running down his cheeks, pooling in his ears. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t fight. He couldn’t do anything. He could feel the knife in his eye, could feel how hard and desperate Sebastian was against him, could feel his pulse thrum against Sebastian’s rough fingers, and he could do nothing. 

“What a good little soldier.”

He woke with a gasp, one hand loosening its hold on his own throat. It was cold suddenly, and dark, as if night had come, but there was something wrong about it. He breathed, curling in on himself with a whine. 

And he was hard. That was the worst of it all. He didn’t know why, the things in his dream, never had such an effect on him, Paolo had, but only the first few times, and he’d been able to wave them off as instinctual reaction. 

But this was Sebastian. Sebastian was different. 

\----------------

Sebastian pulled himself out of the hole in the floor, looking around at the field for Stefano. The sky had darkened to that deep blue, not night but some horrible parody of it. The day and night cycles had been turned off, it shouldn’t have been able to get dark. Sebastian turned his head up, not to the moon, but to that large eye, finding it wandering, a spotlight coming from it. 

It was looking for Stefano. He’d thought it was Stefano’s before but no, not with how it was hunting him. He may have a flair for the theatrics but this was more than just a need to perform. It hadn’t found him yet and Sebastian hadn’t either, with his quick glance around the field. 

Gaging its pattern, he darted out and around the smoldering building, glancing into trees and in vehicles. If it hadn’t found him yet, he must have been hiding pretty well. Obscura shouldn’t have been though, she was big and loud and boisterous. If he could find her, he could find Stefano. 

She was close to where they’d started, over at that little cottage, picking up the corpses she’d made earlier and throwing them against trees and the building itself, photographing them as they splattered, so the fell in slow motion. Sebastian had to stop, look away, remind himself that these weren’t people, that this was the same as a cat playing with the mouse it had already killed. 

“Obscura?” he called out, keeping an eye out for that light. 

She yelped and dropped the body she was currently playing with, rushing in her odd way towards him. That made them both bigger targets. 

“Where’s Stefano?”

At that she moaned lavishly and started to run off. Sebastian wanted to call after her, tell her to be sneaky, but he was certain that wasn’t something she understood.   
She made it to the RV that they’d past earlier, all while the eye in the sky was scanning the safe house. 

“Uh, thanks, good girl?”

She yelped and ran off. Apparently, Sebastian was safe enough to be around Stefano in Obscura’s opinion. He tried the door and, finding it locked, shoved his shoulder against it and shoved. The lock was old, easily broken. It didn’t even wake Stefano up. 

He was a sad state, to be sure. Sebastian didn’t know if it was because of the coffee or not, but he felt right as rain, didn’t feel tired, as if this had all just been a few hours. Stefano though, he’d gotten a bit sluggish and now, with Sebastian looking him over, not exactly being stealthy, he wasn’t responding at all. 

There was a shiver traveling over him, still dressed. Poor guy was too tired to even hunt down a blanket. Sebastian found one in the small closet, but the pillow was too eaten through to be of any use. He unfolded it and, gentle as he could, laid it over Stefano’s shoulders, yelling at himself the entire time. It wasn’t like Stefano deserved his kindness, he didn’t even know why they were still working together. They weren’t anyway. That’s why he’d come looking for him, to tell him that. But now, seeing how out of it he was, Sebastian didn’t want to interrupt. 

He pulled the blanket snug around Stefano’s shoulders, and it was then that he saw the bruises forming on his throat, some distinct enough to be fingerprints. 

\-----------------

The loud moaning outside was fine, it was the light gasp and the gentle hand on his chin, trying to turn his head a different angle that woke him. It was Sebastian, of course, standing over him but, in the middle of the night, so soon after that dream, he didn’t want Sebastian looming over him. He didn’t want anyone looming over him. He pulled away, yanking up the blanket to his chin, as if that would protect him. 

And then he looked at the blanket. He hadn’t gone to sleep with one. 

“Sorry, I needed to talk to you,” Sebastian explained, a bit too rushed. 

“You found this?” he asked, looking down at the blanket. It was worn out, eaten away, but it was better than the nothing that he had. 

“Yeah, guess you passed out before you could take a look around.”

Stefano nodded. He didn’t trust his voice. Sebastian sat on the bed and he flinched. He didn’t trust any part of his body, or Sebastian’s, for the moment. 

Sebastian must have noticed because he froze, thought hard about something, then scratched at the back of his neck, looking away. 

“Look, Stefano, I, uh, working with you has been an experience and I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t have gotten through Theodore’s mind tricks without you-“

“But this is where we part ways.” Stefano continued for him. Even with the rock in his gut he knew this was going. Sebastian’s face went slack, surprised that he knew. It almost made Stefano want to laugh, almost, because how could he not. He’d seen that soft face before, heard that stammer, that ‘it’s been nice but’ many times before, and it always went the same way. Agents, models, lovers, they all left eventually. 

“It’s fine, I’m sure you’ll go a lot faster without me,” he added, hating the silence. There was always silence. 

“It doesn’t have to be forever. I just have to go through some restricted areas you can’t get through.”

“Is it because of what Esmeralda called me?” Stefano didn’t know why he asked, but he did, anyway. He had been curious in those regards. 

“What? No, I…” Sebastian’s face went tight, eyes looking everywhere but at Stefano. “I’m married.”

“And I’m not interested, still I understand that can be a blow to some men’s self-esteem.” Married. He should have realized what with the ring and all. What was a married man doing here? There was so much he still didn’t know about Sebastian, not that it mattered. 

“I don’t have time for this,” Sebastian groaned and stood up, reaching into one of the packs on his gun holster. “Take this, yeah? So, I can contact you when this is done.”

“Whatever you desire,” he just wanted to go to sleep. He didn’t want to deal with this. This was human, boring, overdone. 

“It’s set to my frequency and mine’s set to yours.”

“Well, that’s an intelligent choice.”

Sebastian sighed, he looked frustrated. That was fine, Stefano had no problems with frustrating him. Perhaps if he was annoyed enough he wouldn’t try to get Stefano back. That was always awkward. 

“Fine, look, just watch yourself out there.” 

Stefano gave him a smile, not caring that it was just his mouth. Sebastian sighed again, got up, and left. Good. Stefano didn’t need him. 

When he heard Obscura screech and run off a little while, he just curled in on himself under the blanket further. It was fine, he was used to being alone. He didn’t need anyone. 

They always let him down anyway.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> friend  
> noun: friend; plural noun: friends; noun: Friend; plural noun: Friends  
> 1\. a person whom uses knowledge gained over time to betray and hurt those they showed interest in remaining loyal to.

The Marrow was a cold place, both in its architecture and temperature. Sebastian found himself on high alert, not just because of the monsters, but because here, he was alone, here, he didn’t have anyone to watch his back. He was so used to it, dependent on it, that he felt almost useless without it sometimes. 

Joseph had saved his ass in Beacon so many times, with a gun or an axe or a hand on his shoulder, had done so even before they got in there, even though Sebastian couldn’t see it. And Myra, she’d had his back before they were married, was his first partner. He hadn’t even thought of the bottle when he met her. 

Stefano had kidnapped Lily, had tortured and murdered people for his own amusement, had created monsters out of corpses and the living alike. Yet there was still that soft part of him that ignored all of that. Part of him clung to the moments in which Stefano took a knife for him, killing off a monster, when he hurt himself shoving Sebastian out of the way of flames, when he warned and grounded Sebastian against Theodore’s words. There were two Stefano’s and one of them was a goddamn hero. That was the one that he’d hurt. 

He went over the conversation again, trying to understand it. He’d just been trying to say that they’d have to split up for a little while. He didn’t know why Stefano took it the way he had. It was, in part because he’d woken the man up, probably, but there was so much resignation in his eye, as if he’d expected Sebastian to leave him like that. Sebastian shook his head, trying to understand it. If only Stefano had listened or Sebastian had calmed down and done a better job explaining, this wouldn’t have been an issue. 

He looked down at the radio on his belt. It wasn’t exactly his last chance, he could try to make this work out. He didn’t know what the point was though, not really. Sure, he liked Stefano, against all odds, but there was no way he was going to leave Union. There was no life for him outside of this place. 

There were candles all over the floor. 

Theodore had been here. That was probably why he couldn’t contact O’Neal. There were burned corpses along the floor, blood stains leading to an altar. This was all too close to Hoffman’s safe house. He’d have to check on her. 

He had too many responsibilities. Juli had made this sound like an easy job. He knew that there was no such thing, even when it wasn’t Mobius. 

He made it to Hoffman’s door.

\-----------------------

His blazer was crumpled, but it was already bloodstained and ruined and wasn’t that just a perfect metaphor for who he was as a person? He put it on all the same. If he looked like a mess, so be it. It wasn’t like there was anyone around to see it. No one wanted to be around to see it. It was for the best, anyway. His headache was pounding, as if in agreement, reminding him that he was a danger to be around. Even if Sebastian hadn’t just cast him aside, he should have, for his own sake. 

Stefano pulled himself up from the bed. Emotions were a stupid thing, not something that he cared to have cloud his judgement. They were, however, a great inspiration for his work and this was one crawling after him, demanding to be painted in thick red strokes over a torn through canvas. Raw and open and bleeding. 

He was slow moving, slower than usual, his usual pains thunder against his nerves. He didn’t want to move. He made it to the door all the same. It could be opened now, Sebastian saw to that. He wondered if that was a metaphor too, but decided not to dwell on it. 

He didn’t hear Obscura out there, all he could hear was that thrumming sound, that eye looking for him. It was there, as well and he gasped, shutting himself back into the RV. He could feel himself shake as he slid down the door, trying to think, trying to come u with some way to escape that gaze. Obscura was gone, having abandoned him along with Sebastian, so she couldn’t be a distraction. 

He wasn’t alone. As much as he’d thought he was, he wasn’t. Paolo was out there, watching for him, waiting for him. He didn’t know what to do. He could hardly think. All he could see was the blue outside, the red inside, wanting to come out, the need to make, the need to be wanted, the desire to get these emotions and pain out of himself. 

He pulled himself to his feet. There was nothing he could do, cowering in the RV. He could avoid the searchlights, step forward until he was far away from here. He didn’t need Sebastian to protect him. He didn’t need anyone to protect him. He could do all of this himself. And he could make art. 

Opening the door, he stared up at the eye. He wanted to make art out of Paolo. 

\----------------------

She wasn’t there. There was one of those resonance points though. He pulled out his radio, following the sound it made until he reached Hoffman’s echo. It sounded like she and O’Neal were together at least, though the fact that he couldn’t hear a word of O’Neal’s side made him worried. If he was going into a restricted area of the Marrow, there was something else going on. That didn’t sound like O’Neal at all. 

Sebastian looked down at his communicator. He didn’t want to be the first one to call. He wanted to ask Stefano to hop over to O’Neal’s safehouse, just to check, but he didn’t know if that was even possible. He knew Stefano couldn’t enter but just to make sure the place was still standing would have been enough. 

But he couldn’t call. He didn’t know what he’d done wrong but he’d definitely done something very wrong. He needed Stefano to calm down first, would let him do the calling. When he was all good and ready, Sebastian would be there to listen. 

\---------------------

He was able to make it back to Union, back to the true heart of the city, where life still flowed in a decrepit myriad of suffering, without too much of an issue. He had almost stepped in the path of the eye, on more than one occasion. It would have been so much easier to get to Paolo, if only he was already there. 

He needed something first, the paint for his brush, the film for his camera, the inspiration for his work. As nice as the concept was, to take Paolo and strip him down to his bones, to flay his flesh and sculpt his organs, he needed a bit more. He needed the Core. 

Stefano turned on his heel, standing in the middle of the street. There was no need to worry about cars here and there were so few of those creatures still wandering around, he was in no danger. He sniffed the air, looking into the distance, ready to step forward and travel closer. He had no leads as to where the girl would be hiding now, not like he had before. She had been so easy before. 

Not that it mattered. He would find her. He wouldn’t be such a fool again. 

There was something down East, something different, and he took a step forward, if only to see what it was. It wasn’t a lead, not yet, not this early. It was something he’d seen before, back when he’d found those immaculate sculptures, those creatures in the throes of panic, arms and legs extended, fingers and fingers and faces in exhilarating terror. The artist who had created them had been here, white waxy polyps in their trail. 

He followed them, the polyps growing in size and quantity. Some of them popped as he drew too close and in places they were just pools of white fluid, drizzling down the sidewalk. It was so clean, so pure, so unlike everything else he’d seen here. 

The woman was standing ahead of him, her back turned. She was wearing all white, covered in the same ooze that sat heavy on all that she surveyed. Oh, she was delightful to gaze upon, and Stefano knew that it would be difficult to coerce her fear to the surface. She was a being of power here, like him, so much more than those around them. She knew things that he could only guess at in his wildest dreams.

He stepped forward a few more times, trying to catch up to her. She did not move, either because she did not fear him or did not know him. She would become accustomed to both soon enough. 

\----------------------

There weren’t that many in his way, but Sebastian was still feeling slow, like sneaking around corners and stabbing every one of these creatures was taking far too long. It went better with Stefano. It wasn’t more fun, he couldn’t imagine how killing people could be fun, but it would be faster. He couldn’t deny that watching Stefano in action was a joy all in itself too. The man was quick, both with his powers and with a blade. He was good with a gun too. 

A sharp shooter, Torres had called him. He said that he was military. That explained how he’d met Paolo, but not why they were both here, in STEM, now. It could have been a coincidence but that was a pretty far stretch, two Italians who knew each other before all this, being brought in without full memory wipes, and both gaining supernatural abilities. It was just too much. 

That meant that Paolo had known that Stefano was in here though and that was almost harder to believe. Theodore must have found him, or Paolo had found Theodore, and they’d made some kind of deal. He was already pretty certain he knew what Stefano’s deal with Theodore was; the girl for power and an audience and the resources to make as much art as he wanted, but what could Paolo do for Theodore? 

He made his way to the elevator. He had a goal in mind, he couldn’t afford distractions. Still, he kept thinking about Stefano, what all this must mean for him. Now that they were separated, his mind kept wandering to what he might be up to. He had to hope that Paolo didn’t find him, what with that eye that was above Torres’ safe house. Stefano was fast, certainly, and he could hold his own, but Paolo was something else and he was sure to put a fear into Stefano that he couldn’t fight. 

Sebastian’s hands made fists as the lights flickered and the elevator moved. He was such an idiot. Stefano probably thought that he was done with him, definitely did, after that last conversation. It made him open, vulnerable, and Sebastian hadn’t even asked about those bruises on his neck. He couldn’t protect Stefano now, not if Paolo came after him. 

The elevator doors opened and he was hit with the common sight of a corpse. Of course. He wanted to call Stefano, he wanted to make sure he was alright. He wanted to make things alright. He couldn’t though, not until he knew there weren’t any more of those things around. 

\---------------------

“You!” the woman growled, her voice deep and rough, “You hurt Lily!”

At that he had no argument, so he raised both his hands instead, taking a step slowly, the smile never wavering. “Pain? No. Terror? As much as I was able to produce.   
Her fear, you see, is intoxicating. I have done all manner of things in my life and her fear has been the most promin-“

She flung out her arm and it became a large spike, made from that white fluid but harder now, and she was running towards him, screaming all the while. 

Hurting Lily, or even threatening her mental health, was obviously a way to turn this woman against him. 

He stepped forward, out of the way of her blade, and took a few more steps, just to be certain. “So I see. Your own safety is not something that concerns you, but it is all that you care about for the girl.”

“You don’t get to speak of her!” the woman spun on him, growling, almost a true animal. What a disappointment. Here he’d thought he’d found another noble spirit among the rabble of this place. “You’re never going to hurt her again.”

“I will do just that, if I so please,” he promised, smiling wider. She would not stop him. 

There was a flicker, someone else trying to break through the woman’s body, interesting. She looked like a normal woman, trapped inside the other. She was weaker than Stefano had anticipated. 

He took a step forward. The one in front of him did not show fear but the one inside he could terrify. 

She took a step back, throwing her arm up between them, and grit her teeth. “I don’t have time for this. Come on and destroy him.”

He raised an eyebrow. She sounded as if she were speaking to someone, but he was the only one there. 

At least, he’d thought so, but the ground was rumbling and he could hear a high-pitched shriek. 

He looked past her and all of his crumpled, falling away. Blood ran down his face, from his nose, from his eye. He could feel it in his throat, in all different parts of him, as he was shocked back into his more logical self. Sebastian had been able to get him back, as had Lily. 

Of course, Obscura, her camera head leaking and covered and producing that white ichor, her lens a mass of squirming red eyes, had that power. She moaned, polyps like blisters on her flesh, and rushed towards him, differently than she ever had before. 

\-----------------------

Zombies. In tanks. Yeah, that was concerning. There were a lot of them too. He knew they weren’t actually zombies, but they were close enough, and he was certain that all of them would come to life at some point. That was just his luck. 

There was another resonance point ahead, another one from Hoffman. He’d need a chip from a Mobius agent to get through. Was it just the Mobius operatives who had them? He explored the space in silence, looking over all of the Union citizens that they’d been experimenting on. There was no way he was getting out of here without a fight. There were just too many of them. At least some of them were bound to wake up. 

He wondered if the citizens also had brain chips, if he had a brain chip. He couldn’t have. He’d been put in so quick and there was no pain other than the initial drowning. There was a bit of time when Juli had him drugged but he was sure that he would have noticed if he’d been shaved and something had been shoved in. 

He wondered if Stefano had one. It wouldn’t be recognizable from within here, he was sure. Stefano probably didn’t look the same in here as he did out, the picture that Juli had sent to his room was missing some of the scar tissue and lines that Stefano had, more so than just age would hide. 

Ruvik hadn’t looked the same inside and out of STEM, that was obvious. Outside he didn’t even have a body. Stefano must have looked like he imagined himself to look while in here, any anxiety he had about his appearance becoming worse. Sebastian hadn’t seen his eye, aside from when it was damaged, but he was sure Stefano was self-conscious about it. Most people were with things like that. 

There was a corpse on a table, another resonance point. This corpse was different from the others, staged, head shaved in just the right spot. There was a strange machine hovering over him, a drill almost aimed at his head. He looked around, confirming his thoughts. A Mobius agent, primed and ready for him, to get that chip he needed. A little bit too perfect. 

\-------------------------

He hissed, not quite dodging out of the way enough as one of her barbed tendrils shot through his side. The other three came up, ready to bat at him, for the barbs to slice in and catch, so she could tear him into pieces. 

“Obscura!” he cried out, trying to get her attention, trying to get her back. He’d tried so many times but she was gone, she couldn’t hear him. Wherever she had run off to on her own, she’d been corrupted, completely, by that woman. 

He aimed the gun, Sebastian’s gun, and fired, going for one of her feet. It wouldn’t stop her, but she groaned haughtily and dropped him at least. He hit the ground with a groan and a whimper, a hand reaching for his side, to clasp at the gushing wound. 

Of anyone, she could read him best. She knew where he was weak, what he would do, she hopped back and forth, keeping that one foot raised. 

He knew her though, through and through. He knew her back when she wasn’t Obscura. He knew her when he made her, down to the finest detail. He sobbed, knowing exactly how to take her apart. 

He pulled himself to his feet, clutching at the deep hole. She screamed, rearing up and he tried to step forward, but his attention was on her, and he could only get closer. She shoved her wounded foot down on him, as well as one of her good ones, slamming into his shoulders, knocking him back onto the ground. He raised his arms, trying to defend himself, as she trampled him, but he was bleeding and aching and screaming, unable to deter her in any way. 

There was a light, a bright light, shining down on them. He didn’t know what it was, it didn’t matter. 

He rolled to the side, grabbing her wounded foot as he did, digging his fingers into the wound. She still felt pain, he was sure of that, and she cried out, trying to pull away. He let her, finding himself sucking in air through lungs that felt worse than bruised, under ribs that felt worse than fractured. Her moving back was what he needed though and he took another shot, the bullet running through another of her feet. 

She collapsed, that one remaining foot working to hoist her back up. If this were indoors he would have lost already. If there were overhangs he’d be dead. As it was, he was lucky to be alive. 

He pulled himself up, limped towards her, gun at the ready. He didn’t want to kill her. He could feel the tears in his eye. He didn’t want to hurt her. She was his masterpiece. She was so beautiful. She was everything that he couldn’t do outside of this place. She was his and she had been a good friend, all this time, always loyal and at his side. 

Everyone betrays people, given enough time. He had learned that so many times. He couldn’t believe he’d been such a fool to think she was different. 

She turned her head and that was it, this wasn’t his Obscura. Even if she had abandoned him, allowed herself to be turned into this thing, this wasn’t Obscura anymore. She hadn’t tried to hurt him. That face, it wasn’t her face. It was the face that woman had given her. He pulled his aim up, directly at those red eyes. 

She sighed. He didn’t falter, even though it was her voice. She wasn’t in there anymore. 

He was too focused, he didn’t notice until it was too late, that her tendrils were coming for him once more. They’d wrapped behind him and he plunged the trigger and they plunged through him, sliding through his damaged lungs, a kidney, his intestines. He saw the bouquet of his own fluids splash out, followed by the long metal protrusions. He could taste copper in his mouth, so much more than he could with the headache. 

She didn’t move, did not fight him anymore. He fell to his knees, shuddering, tears pouring out his eye, as he fought to not move those barbs inside of him. There was no use, he fell, head landing on her flank. 

He was going to die from this, there was no denying that. He would die the same way he had lived outside of Union, alone. He bit back an undignified sound as he realized that on top of that he would also die unknown.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> had a big set back in losing all of Sebastian's bits for this, including a major revelation that didnt come through when I rewrote it. I think I combined a few scenes. This is what we're getting though.

Beacon. Of course, it was exactly like Beacon. It had happened to Joseph, it had happened to himself. It had happened to Stefano. Here though, they called it the Lost. 

He didn’t know what had caused what had happened to him and Joseph, just that it could be fought, that it could be controlled, but not by the masses. Here, in Union, it was caused by that creature, that ghostly woman with her songs. 

It prayed on their memories or, in the case of the people that were trapped here, the lack of memory. Sebastian had tried so hard to repress his memories of Beacon. They’d been tearing him apart in the real world, he couldn’t tell if he was even there sometimes, if he was real at all. His therapist, that Mobius mole, had told him to ignore Beacon, to pretend it hadn’t happened, because that knowledge was killing him. He’d done his best to. And now it was ammunition for that thing. 

Stefano didn’t have all of his memories, but he had a good amount of them, the ones that had shaped him. He didn’t know what sort of thing that ghost could cling to, draw out. Perhaps Paolo. Perhaps his time as a soldier. Sebastian didn’t know what had been erased, what had been brought in. 

This time, when he pulled out his radio, he did call. As much as he wanted Stefano to make the first move, to take his time, to lick his wounds, Sebastian needed to tell him this, needed to hear his voice. He felt good, better than he had since Beacon, and it gave him some foolish form of hope, that things could be smoothed over. 

He set his communicator to Stefano’s frequency and pressed the button. 

\--------------------

His name woke him. It was fuzzy, echoey, far away. So was everything else. His vision swam, fuzzy, echoey, far away. 

It was Sebastian’s voice. 

He breathed, tried to breathe, but all that came out was a horrible gurgling sound. Obscura was still beneath him, cold. He was cold too. His blood was warm and he clung to it, trying to keep himself warm with it. There was so much of it. 

In all this white, it was like he was a red ink splatter on a pristine canvas. 

His name again. He wanted to reach out, to grab it, hold it close. Not just his name, Sebastian saying his name, with hope, with something in it that was disgusted. He wanted to put the way his name sounded right then in his heart and, with as many holes as there were in him just then, he was almost certain he could do it. 

He just had to be able to move his arms. 

His name, a third time, but this time with disappointment, a familiar accent, a threatening hiss. He cringed, whimpered as the barbs tore at his insides. Three pairs of combat boots, one pair of combat boots, stepped in front of him in unison, landing in the same footfalls. 

He shrank away as the man squatted down in front of him, ruffled his hair. He couldn’t even fight such a simple touch, though it made him tremble. 

“There you are, my good little soldier,” Paolo took his chin in hand and wrenched his head in another direction, towards his face. Stefano groaned, the motion causing sparks of darkness to spiral in his vision, for his neck to ache and his joints to creak. “Look at yourself, another mess for me to clean up, I see.”

\------------------------

It looked like a stable field emitter. A lot like one, though this one was surrounded b holy symbols that came directly from Ruvik’s imagination and piles upon piles of candles. He was going to blow it up, Torres was at his side, absolutely itching for it. They were going to reveal Theodore. They were going to find him, finish this. 

Sebastian hoped that he could do it. That the three of them would be able to beat Theodore. Hoffman would be useless in a fight, better than Liam before he’d been turned into Theodore’s puppet, but she was a psychiatrist, not accustomed to a fight. Torres though, she would be good to have at his side. 

He wanted another though, he wanted Stefano to be there. He couldn’t be, they were still in the Marrow. If he could point him in the right direction though, let him know they were heading into that place, he could meet them there. 

He couldn’t call though. He didn’t want to test it, in front of Hoffman. She was still going on about how those with powers in here had to be psychopaths, though he wasn’t so sure about that. Stefano didn’t seem to be a psychopath, he had too much emotional range. He didn’t have empathy, it didn’t seem, but he did feel things, and he took things much more personally than any psychopaths he’d met before. 

He wanted him there though. The fact that he hadn’t responded, that there hadn’t even been a button press on his communicator, had Sebastian nervous. Even if he was angry, even if he was hurt, he would have responded. Surely, he couldn’t be so angry that he would ignore Sebastian in this place. It was too dangerous for games like that. 

“I’m going to go check out the equipment in the other room,” Hoffman said, already at the door. “Good luck, you too.”

They backed towards the door, watching her leave. She had the right choice. The bombs were on a trigger, they didn’t have to be in the room with them. As safe as Torres claimed they were, it still made Sebastian nervous. 

“Okay, here we go.” 

He wanted to say something, not to Torres exactly, but to Stefano. He didn’t know what. All he knew was that there was something there, something eating away at him, and it felt like more than worry. He didn’t like to focus on it, not now that he knew Myra was so nearby, that there was still something that he could do about his love for her. The feeling that made his worry into a knot, into something almost tangible, that made all of his thoughts turn, somehow towards Stefano, felt a lot like déjà vu. 

It felt a lot like how he’d felt for Joseph, back before he knew what he was, how strongly he felt for people, before Myra had taught him more about himself than he’d ever learned on his own. 

“Operation Kick Ass happening in three…”

He had to focus. He couldn’t think about Myra right now, nor Joseph. He especially couldn’t think about Stefano. 

“Two…”

He wondered if the ceiling would come down on them, if Stefano would ever find out if they were dead. 

“One!” She pressed the trigger and the emitter burst, the explosion causing electrical showers and smoke as shrapnel scattered. Sebastian threw up his arms, trying to keep it from hitting his face, his chest. 

He didn’t know where Torres was. Everything was full of smoke, the kind that came from fires instead of allies. 

“Are you okay, Torres?” he called out. Everything was dark. He could feel an itching in his lungs. 

Is this what it had been like? Out in the desert, in the middle of a warzone? He didn’t have a camera in his hand or shrapnel pressed into him, he was surprisingly unmaimed by the pieces of machinery that had shot free. 

There was no answer. 

He took a step forward, into the smoke, getting closer to the blast zone. “Torres? Where’d you?”

The smoke finally started to clear and he was standing before what was left of the emitter, sparking and burning uselessly. The antenna on it was crooked, the wiring cooked, the whole thing a garbled up mess. It would take a lot to fix it up and Theodore didn’t have a handyman anymore. 

The piles of candles bust into life once more, those scattered on the floor someone unperturbed by the explosion. 

“Sebastian Castellanos.” Theodore’s voice seemed to come from everywhere and Sebastian took a step back, drawing his shotgun. The man could be anywhere. “You refuse to step into the darkness, so you try to bring me to the light?”

The voice, he couldn’t tell if it was out there or in him. Stefano would know. He knew Theodore. Sebastian had to ground himself. He knew that Theodore was full of tricks. 

He turned on one of the flaming piles, watching it flail with each deep chord of Theodore’s voice. “Your rash decisions have always been your downfall.”

Come then, I await you…”

\--------------------

He awoke in a dark place, a red place, an angry place, that smelled of sulfur and charred flesh. He tried to move but couldn’t, his wrists and ankles bound, spread, stuck down to a table he knew all too well. He shut his eye, tightened it, tried not to be there, tried to be anywhere, even out in Union, bleeding out. 

He could hardly breathe, both from the bindings around his chest and stomach and the panic. He opened his eye but nothing had changed. He was still there, in Theodore’s dungeon, bound to the gurney. 

“You know, you’ve given me no end of trouble,” Paolo smirked, rounding a corner and making his way into Stefano’s sights. He was cleaning under his nails with a scalpel. Stefano hoped he tripped and stabbed himself with it. 

His mouth was dry. 

“Even before I got here, I was chasing you here and there, city to city, state to state, and never once did you think of me, hmm? The trouble you caused? The hurt in my heart?” 

He walked close, sat on the edge of the gurney. He was so close. Stefano could smell the blood on him, the sand, the antiseptic. He still smelled like war. Stefano writhed as best he could. 

“Every time you made a mistake, there I was, to clean up after you. To take care of you,” he ran a hand through Stefano’s hair, brushing it away from the hole in his face. He grimaced at what he found. “All those people, those models, those fools, I cleaned it up, every time. Yet you had no regard for me, broke my heart every time.”

His models? Stefano’s head was swimming. He could hardly focus. His… 

He’d been hunted, even before Krimson City. His models had gone missing, so many of them had just up and left and he’d had no idea as to where. He only started running once a few of them had been found, dead, their deaths too similar to his own posing of them. The word serial killer started to follow him, he’d been wanted by the police, and only now was he learning why. 

He struggled, tearing his wrists open against the ties. 

“Now, now, don’t do that,” Paolo rested a hand over Stefano’s own, his skin burning at the contact, as if his touch was acid. “I’ve already had to deal with so many of your wounds, again.” 

Stefano opened his cottony mouth, not to scream, not to plead, he didn’t know what he was going to say. He wanted away. He wanted to fight. Like this, he couldn’t do anything. He was trapped. 

“I gave you such pleasures, both in your mind and body, and I was only repaid in betrayal.” He reached into his pocket, pulling out a syringe, “I gave you none of this, this time, even though you were in tatters. I don’t know if morphine would have the same effect on you here as it did out there.”

Again, his pulse sang with lust, his body relinquishing its grip on self-preservation. It had been so long, he’d gone without the relief of morphine. His own pain, his own thoughts, his own inactions, Paolo held them all in his hand. 

“Now, I may give you another chance, as will Theodore, once you are reformed, to gather the Core. I will give you this, as a reward, on top of the rest. I must know though, if you will continue fighting me. If you choose to do so, I will have no power to stop his rage.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Got that scene I wasnt able to fit into the last chapter and wrote some gross stuff. Here you go!

He was standing in a lake, reaching up to just about his hip, of blood. It was dark, he could hardly see, but he could smell it, feel its horribly sticky heat seeping through his jeans. There were a few flames, attached to candles, no doubt, illuminating broken pieces of walls. 

“You want to find your beloved daughter,” Theodore’s voice was as oppressive as the heat, “go then.”

There were things out there, in the darkness, more things huddling around the lights. Sebastian didn’t have to guess at that. 

“See if it’s everything you dreamt of.”

His radio buzzed to life, a different frequency than Stefano’s a different frequency than any of the others he’d trained it to. “I’m over here… Dad… hurry!”

She couldn’t have been here, not in this place. Theodore couldn’t have caught her, taken her from Myra. His doubt was obscured, buried under the fear in her voice, his need to have her in his arms once more. It had been a while, Sebastian didn’t know how long, since he’d last seen Theodore. Stefano hadn’t been his only operative, the only person hunting after Lily. Paolo could have hunted her down, captured her, and he’d been too busy with other things. 

“Oh god… Lily? You’re here…” he couldn’t imagine her in a place like this, this dark, this macabre. It had made the streets of corpses, the blue frames of looping murders that Stefano had made look pristine. He trained his radio for her voice and shoved forward through the blood, trying to find her. 

He danced around the Lost, Theodore’s disciples, and anything else that had found new life in the darkness. 

Among the broken walls were long strips of cloth, red curtains of silk that billowed in a breeze that he couldn’t feel. He saw a gurney, rolling in a shallower space of the lake. There were altars around pillars, building up light from dozens of candles, which he avoided, seeing those things playing dead around them. He saw a set of double doors, perfect for an ancient cathedral. The frequency was coming from there, Lily’s voice echoing through it. 

On either side of it were those curtains, the same curtains that had been around all of Stefano’s works. Stuck to the wall, above a crank, half buried by chains, was the name “Lily Castellanos”. 

Sebastian’s heart sank. He looked at his radio. Stefano hadn’t answered him when he’d called. He had no way to guess what the man had done since they’d parted ways. 

\------------------------

Paolo pulled away suddenly, standing, his scalpel dragging out from between the muscles in Stefano’s arm. He grimaced, cracked his neck, and then stilled. When Stefano sniffled, trying not to see how much damage Paolo had caused in the few minutes he’d been ‘repairing’ Stefano’s scarring, he was awarded a loud “shush” and a finger to his lips. He obeyed, not knowing what else he could do. 

“He’s here, that friend of yours,” Paolo grimaced, turning back to him, “Not for you, of course, but for Theodore.”

“Sebastian?” Stefano hated how weak his own voice was. 

Paolo looked at his arm, grabbing it and turning it, even though there wasn’t much motion he could gain from it being bound to the railing of the gurney. “Yes, that’s the name. I am almost feel bad for him, searching so hard for his daughter in a place like this.”

“Daughter?” he couldn’t think. He turned his head, looking Paolo in the eye as best he could.”

The grimace turned to a grin, absolutely wicked. It wasn’t a smile Stefano liked being under. “You didn’t know? Oh, my poor boy! Yes, his daughter is the Core! That’s probably why Theodore wants him so badly, he’d be much better at containing her than you’d ever be.”

Stefano pulled at his restraints with renewed life. If Sebastian was there, he had to do something. Sebastian would be there to help him, if he knew that Stefano needed it. Sebastian may not know whether or not he needed help, but Stefano did, and he owed Sebastian that much. 

He remembered Sebastian’s voice, just before Paolo, or at least, his desire to hear Sebastian’s voice, and hearing the concern in there. If Stefano could do anything for anyone, it would be for Sebastian. He didn’t know what it would be though, but his life, as pathetic and sullied as it was, felt like it was no where near enough. 

“Please,” he shuddered, his voice shaking, “let me go, let me help him.”

Paolo chuckled at that, slapping Stefano’s cheek with one bloody hand. “And why should I do that?”

Stefano’s eye burned with tears unshed, not that kind that came from pain, but from his own frustration in himself, in Paolo, his need to get out, his fear and his sorrow. “I’ll make you a deal,” he could tell that he was shaking, that he was begging, but he didn’t care. If it was what would get Paolo to listen, he’d do it. For Sebastian. “I’ll make you deal.”

Paolo crossed his arms over his chest, looking Stefano over. 

“I’ll stop. I’ll stop fighting you, I’ll stop running away. I’ll be yours, in every way, do whatever you want without complaint, just. Just give me this moment, let me help him, one last time.”

His stomach was in knots. He’d never felt his stomach churn so much, aside from when he’d finally been able to shake the morphine Paolo had injected into his life. He felt things for Sebastian, he couldn’t deny it, and even if he would just be abandoned, forgotten, hurt, he couldn’t stop himself. He had to do this. He just wanted Sebastian to be far from here, to be safe. 

“And you think I’d trust that?” Paolo scoffed, “After so many times you’ve left me? Gone city to city, even to a place that doesn’t fully exist, just to spite me? Why should I believe you?”

Stefano closed his eyes, exhaling a long, trembling breath, “It doesn’t matter, whatever I do, wherever I go, you will find me. There’s no point in me trying to hide from you.” He swallowed, knowing what he’d have to do, knowing it could take time that Sebastian would need, and hating it. It didn’t matter though, he was swearing his allegiance, and whatever he did here, he knew he would do for the rest of his life, no matter how long that ended up being. “I can prove my loyalty. Untie me and I’ll show you, I’ll show you how badly I want this, to be yours, to serve. I just need closure first.”

\----------------------

There was more of it, more of that red lake, more candles, more darkness. There were more pieces of walls as well, of curtains, of tree roots and monsters. There were cubes, floating on the water surface, a foot up into the air, of shimmering blue, the way that Stefano’s camera would freeze time. These were small though, about a square foot each, and held nothing of interest. They were things that invoked Stefano, instead of being of him. 

He made it to some plastic chairs, chairs that he knew, tiny, made for stuffed animals, but ones that he’d squeezed himself into for Lily’s tea parties, near a wall that had a drawing on it that he had burned away so many years ago. He’d barely stepped away when his radio fizzed back into life, the frequency changing without his touch. 

“…Sebastian?” it was two voices, one louder, weak and frightened, Stefano’s accent dripping thickly through it, and one quieter but shouted and worried, at the same time. “Sebastian, where are you? Where…” the static took it over just as he was able to pinpoint that second voice as Joseph. 

He turned the knobs, trying to get their frequency back, but just found himself on another channel, the one with Lily, crying and sniveling. 

He put the radio back on his hip. He had to focus on Lily. His lungs burned though, his mind trying to go back to the two men, one he’d loved so fiercely, the other… he didn’t know how he felt about. He shouldn’t have felt anything other than hatred towards Stefano, but there was that tightness in his gut, that swelling in his heart, that desire within him to see Stefano again, whole and healthy and happy, though he didn’t know what that was even like. It was like when he’d first felt something for Joseph all over again, but with Joseph he’d been able to pursue that, been able to consider something more than a working relationship. He’d been ashamed of it, felt like the worst fiancé, the worst husband, ever, but Myra had understood more than he ever had. She had been the one to invite Joseph over, first to dinner, later to their bed. He didn’t even know what he was, but Myra knew. But if he were to do that with Stefano, that would be wrong. He didn’t know where Myra was, but she was here, she was alive, he couldn’t hurt her like that. 

He turned a corner, right into a massive brute with fire in his belly. He was distracted, his mind rambling. He pulled up his shotgun, firing and only seeing that red get brighter inside. He had to keep his mind on track. He fired again, hopping back before running, hearing the thing groan and try to chase him before it burst, insides flying out to mix with the lake around them. Part of him knew that it was all a trick, something Theodore was doing to try to weaken his offense, but Sebastian didn’t care. It was all true anyway. Stefano was his weakness, as was Lily, but he wouldn’t give either of them up. 

There was a door, so much less grand than the last, just small and white with little painted butterflies and flowers in it. The room behind it was all broken walls and camera flash, nothing inside of it moving. In the center of the room there was a doll, pulled up by the threads that were sewn into its arms, its back arched and chest cut into, letting all of the fluff spill out. 

Sebastian stepped into the blue light and heard that music, that orchestral sway that had followed the artist through his world. 

“Mom never gave up, not like you…” Lily’s voice was clear as he got close to the doll, but then it morphed, twisted, into Stefano’s voice, “you left me behind, never listened to any of those you claimed to care for.”

The fluff turned red, burst into blood and then looped back till it was whole, an invisible blade cutting through it to reveal its insides once more. The camera flashed and it was all gone and Sebastian was home. He was standing in Lily’s room. She was standing before her window, although the window was surrounded in those red curtains. The ballerina on her desk had been wrapped in tiny barbed wire, cutting it into horrific pieces, stuck together in a parody of itself. The toys on the floor were blades, a camera, things that should have been Stefanos. His desire to help them both was clouding what things were. 

But Stefano wasn’t here. In front of the window, silhouetted by the moon outside, was Lily, her head bowed. 

“She tried to tell you…” everything shifted again, the lighting turning blue, his own voice echoing through Lily’s “but you were too stupid to listen.” 

He was back in that lake. There was no sign of Lily. He put his hand to his head, trying to ground himself. She wasn’t there, she had to be somewhere. He was sure of it. “No… No, no. This isn’t right.” He wasn’t sure at all. He’d had no warning that she was here and Theodore seemed like the kind of person to lord that over Sebastian. It didn’t make sense. 

“Myra succeeded where you failed, in finding Lily, in defeated Stefano,” Theodore’s voice came to him through the depths. Sebastian looked around, not expecting to find the man, but his heart was beating fast all the same. Myra had fought with Stefano? That couldn’t have been right. He didn’t even know where Myra was in this place. 

“You refused to listen. You lost them both, and then became lost yourself.”

“You don’t know anything about me!” Sebastian yelled but he knew he was bluffing. Theodore knew everything. 

“Myra understood that goals can be achieved by submission, as did Stefano. By joining.”

His radio came to life once more but it was Stefano’s voice alone that called out to him, “Why weren’t you there when I needed you?” he sounded tired, weak, weaker than Sebastian had ever heard him. 

He moved. There were no broken walls here, no monsters. Instead there were curtains, empty frames, and photographs, all the same, hard to see but of a figure, staring at the camera, to one side. The photos were gritty and poorly composed, but Sebastian had to guess they were portraits of Stefano, younger perhaps, before Union and before the war maybe, but sill him. 

More of the photos floated on top of the lake, escaping him on the wake his steps produced.

He pushed past red silk, finding a bit of white marble flooring appearing through the slick, an elegant staircase in the center, leading down. 

“Now you’ve come.” Stefano and Lily’s voices mixed, “When it’s too late. You’re always too late.”

“After all this, you still want to be reunited with Lily?” 

“I do,” there was no hesitation. He’d been through Hell for Lily and he knew, more than ever, that he’d go through it again just to see her. 

“And Stefano?”

“I…” yes, yes, of course he wanted to see Stefano, he wanted to make things right with him, somehow, the fact that he wanted so much for someone who had done so much against him, made him feel guilty for admitting that. “I do.”

“Fine. Then come to me.”

\-------------------------

Stefano’s wrists were sore, as were his ankles, but none of that mattered as he sank to the floor. Neither did the shooting pain in his arm, whenever the air touched it, which was always. All that matter was Sebastian and his task, knowing that one would lead to the other. 

His hands were shaking as he reached up, undid the button and zipper of Paolo’s pants, and pulled them down. He’d done this before, because of Paolo, but never for him. For dealers and agents, primarily. He didn’t know if it would be enough to show Paolo that he wanted to be good for him, he didn’t know what Paolo would want.   
He had to be able to walk out of here though, so this was the only option he had left to him. 

Paolo was already hard, at least half way, so that saved him some effort. He didn’t want to have to do this any longer than he’d have to. He looked up at the man, from his position beneath him, where he was sure he’d be for the rest of his days. Paolo didn’t look patient, nor kind, just waiting, watching, playing with his scalpel in one hand. He couldn’t make any mistakes here. 

He pressed his lips to the head, finding the scent of Paolo, blood and antiseptic, stronger here, before pulling him into his mouth. Paolo didn’t move, just kept playing with his scalpel, and Stefano looked at the task at hand, started to bob back and forth, try to get more of the insulting organ into his mouth with each lurch forward, trying not to gag. 

He closed his eye. If this was someone else, someone more deserving, then he thought he might be able to get through it. His mind went through faces as he pushed forward, till he got the head to the back of his tongue, and he swallowed a few times, trying to hear Paolo’s reaction. The only one that came to mind was the one he shoved away, sliding his tongue up the bottom of the erection, pushing against the muscle there. 

He didn’t want to imagine Sebastian. He did, he wanted to imagine what his mouth could do to the man, and that was an odd thought, once that he hadn’t expected, but it was true. He just didn’t want to do it then. He was going to be spending a lot of time with Paolo, he’d need to imagine Sebastian when things got really bad, but right now, he didn’t want to go to him hating him because of the tricks of his own mind. 

He ran his tongue around the head, trying not to think of anyone, trying not to think of anything. Paolo was starting to breath harder, that was something. He opened his eye, just to check on him. The scalpel had been set down and he was leaning back against the gurney, his knuckles white as they gripped the edge. He was doing well then. 

He closed his eye and went deeper, letting the head touch the back of his throat before swallowing and pulling back, creating enough suction to make Paolo groan. He wondered if Sebastian would like that. He didn’t want to think about that. 

He went faster, used his tongue more, went as deep as he could. He needed to get this over with as quickly as possible. 

\--------------------------

He’d been here before, but never alone and never at this angle. It was Theodore’s throne room, though the pit full of blood and corpses had been replaced with a red carpet and multiple angelic statues, tall enough to hold up the roof. Sebastian only took in his surroundings well enough to know that they existed and could be hidden amidst, before his attention was on the pain on the steps, just before the empty throne. 

“Lily? Is it really you?” He asked, walking slowly, as if not to spook a wounded animal, towards her. She was still in her pajamas, head down, her attention on Stefano, not on him. Stefano wasn’t moving either, aside from his breathing, as if doing more than that would be too much work. His suit was a disaster, five holes torn through it and his body underneath. His head was in Lily’s lap, facing her, as she ran her fingers through his hair. He was getting her pajamas stained with his blood and Sebastian was sure he could hear Lily humming a lullaby that Myra once sang to her. 

“Stefano. I. I’m sorry. I should have stayed. I should have explained, I…” he was so close, he could almost touch them. He fell to his knees before them, begging forgiveness, begging for some response. He raised his hand to cup Lily’s cheek. 

He almost touched her when he was shot back, both of them engulfed in flames a foot thick. It faded after a moment, but the heat didn’t leave his hand. 

\-----------------------

Stefano took just a moment to spit and wish he had something to wash out his mouth with. The taste was dreadful, his mouth dry, as if he’d just swallowed sand. He didn’t have time. He had to get up to where Sebastian was. 

He’d been given his clothing, his slacks and dress shirt and shoes, though they were stained with his blood, crispy and clinging, and both his radio and Sebastian’s gun were still on the belt. He pulled the radio out, calling and not expecting an answer. It gave him a direction though, nonetheless, up. 

He made his way to the stairs, taking them two at a time, trying to think ahead and not think back. 

He didn’t want to think too far into the future either. Just till Sebastian. 

\-----------------------

“No… not you too…” Sebastian gasped, falling to one knee. He didn’t know if this was an illusion, Lily coming into her own power, or that they’d been bent to Theodore’s will, but none of those ere options that Sebastian could bear. 

“There they are, your precious daughter and the thorn in your side,” Theodore bellowed. Sebastian looked around, trying to find him. “Is this what you wanted?” the voice was coming from behind him. 

He spun on him, but no, there was no one there.

“Dad?” Lily asked, fear in her voice. She was standing now, Theodore sitting in his throne behind her, Stefano laid upon his lap like a pieta, face buried in Theodore’s neck, hidden away. “You let this happen to me… Why didn’t you save me?” 

His mind raced, trying to come up with some excuse, some reason he hadn’t fought for her as badly as Myra had. He’d believed that she was dead, just as she thought he was. That should have been understandable. 

“No, please…” he stammered instead, knowing that nothing he said would ever be enough. “I-I couldn’t. I wanted to.”

He couldn’t continue, not while she was stepping towards him, her feet leaving flaming prints behind her. Stefano was stirring in Theodore’s lap, watching him, ready to lay on his own guilt next. Sebastian took a step back, he knew how this would go. He kept her pace one step back for every step forward she took. 

He shouldn’t have, he should have run towards her, he should have clung to her. But he was afraid. His mouth was dry and his palms sweating and he couldn’t explain it. He was afraid, of his own daughter, of his own responsibility, of knowing what Theodore had done to her. 

\-----------------------

The throne room, of course Theodore would have him there. He snapped the radio back on his belt, taking out the revolver instead. He knew he couldn’t fight Theodore, but if Sebastian was under his thrall, he had to hope that he could at least distract the man until Sebastian could break free. And, if he was lucky, Theodore would kill him in the process. 

A flash to one side, flame reflected on metal, and he spun, just before the door. 

“Esmeralda!” he smiled, lowering his weapon, actual surprise and hope filling him at the sight. She was gritty and grungy and smelled as much like smoke as the rest of this place, but she was a beautiful bastion of brutality and she would be an inarguable advantage here. 

“Wow…” she looked him over, not returning his enthusiasm. “You look like shit.”

“The feeling is mutual,” he nodded, honestly he felt like shit was an understatement. “But for now I need your assistance. I believe our mutual enemy has Sebastian under his baritone in there. I cannot handle him alone, not in my current state.”

“You need me to run interference?” she hoisted her gun. “Or do I have permission to fire on sight?”

“I wouldn’t trust my eyes and I definitely wouldn’t trust yours, no offense,” Stefano offered, “Interference should be enough.”

She shrugged at his decision, but helped him shove open the double doors anyway. 

\--------------------------

She started to run and she wrapped her arms around his legs burning once more, the heat searing through Sebastian’s calf and knee. She was staring at him, her mouth twisted in either a grin or a grimace, he couldn’t tell. Her skin was melting away. 

Then she burst into flames completely, burning away, and the flames followed up his body, ignoring his clothes to attack his skin. She dissipated, as did the heat on his skin. It left him weak and he fell to his knees in front of Theodore. 

“You are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past,” Theodore explained. Sebastian looked past him, saw Stefano laying on the seat of the throne, half curled in on himself. Lily had been an illusion, surely Stefano was too, but if that were the case, Theodore would have no need for that now. Stefano wouldn’t be there if he wasn’t real. “Unless you join me.”

Sebastian didn’t want to hear it. His hands were on his ears, his head hanging. He didn’t want to fall for any more of Theodore’s tricks. 

“Do that and I can make your dreams come true.”

It didn’t matter. Theodore was in his head. He couldn’t block out his voice. 

“Together we can take Lily from Myra. Once I have the power of the Core, you will truly be free, and you will have power of your own, Stefano to faun at your feet…”

Sebastian had heard enough. He pulled out his gun, swaying, a terrible exhaustion having overcome him. For a moment, he saw Theodore, then nothing, then he fired. 

\-------------------------

Stefano staggered, a hand to his gut. He could see Esmeralda, eyes wide, running to Sebastian’s side. The man was pale, weak, but his aim was still true and it was hard to miss a large area with a shotgun. 

“Se. Seems we came at… at the wrong time… Sebastian.”

He fell to his knees; the world starting to warble and darken. He couldn’t fall now though, he didn’t have much time. Esmeralda was checking Sebastian’s pulse but he was alright, he was just unconscious. He was being given one last chance, for one reason or another. 

“Shit, you think you can walk?” Esmeralda spat, hoisting Sebastian up over her shoulder. “We’ve got a long way to go and I can’t carry you both.”

Stefano nodded, trying to pull himself to his feet. He failed the first time, and the second, but on the third he’d grabbed Esmeralda’s other shoulder and get there. He’d never been shot before. He would admit that it wasn’t something he wanted to do again. It felt a lot like other things being embedded in his flesh, put there through an explosive force, but it burned more. 

“You’re good with a gun, I’m going to need you to use it, a fuck ton,” Esmeralda started back towards the door. “I don’t know the way out of here either so you’re going to have to direct. It’s going to be a long walk back home.”

By home she meant the safe house. Stefano didn’t think it appropriate to remind her that he was not welcome there. He’d decided that dying would be better off than living in his circumstances, but he hadn’t anticipated it being from Sebastian’s hands. He couldn’t blame him though, not in the least. He probably didn’t know what he was shooting at. 

He took a step forward to get past the pair of them and check for Theodore in their path.


	16. Chapter 16

He was slightly aware that he was being carried, his arm over strong shoulders, a different arm wrapped around his waist. A man and a woman were talking, but he couldn’t quite hear them, couldn’t understand them. 

\--------------------------

“Can you get us out of here?” Esmeralda asked, adjusting her hold on Sebastian.

Stefano could hardly believe her, asking him such a question just after everything that had happened. He could still taste Paolo in his mouth but that was secondary to the fire in his gut, his arm wrapped around the shotgun wound, trying to stop the bleeding. “The entire building is surrounded by flame. It cannot be entered or exited by conventional means.”

“We came in differently. Can’t really explain it better than I blew some shit up and we were here. How about unconventional means? Can you get us out that way?” 

There were three of them. He was hurt, he was hurting. He couldn’t think very well. His attention kept being pulled back to his stomach and he wondered if he was dying. A part of him, a large of him, wished that he was. Better to die at Sebastian’s hands than live at Paolo’s. 

“Stefano?”

“Perhaps. I’m not as capable when I am injured, I believe.” He had been injured the last time he’d tried, but he’d also just lost the Core. He’d have to try, for Sebastian’s sake. He owed the man that much. 

“That?” Esmeralda started waking, half dragging Sebastian towards the door. “That’s just cosmetic. Hurts like a bitch but I doubt it’ll even scar.”

She was lying, Stefano knew that, but the fact that it hurt was true, as well as that it wouldn’t kill him. He was scarred enough, hideous to most under his tailored clothes, what was another scar, brought by someone he cared about?

\-------------------------

They were moving or everything else was. He couldn’t tell. It was hot. There was stone under his feet, not that he was was moving. So that meant everything was moving around him then. And they were still in Theodore’s clutches. 

“Come on man,” Torres, that’s who it was, complained, close to his ear. “Let’s get you out of here.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” came the other voice, wobbly a bit further away, deep and smoldering and that kind of note that felt good to have pressed against his brain, like a tincture on a headache. “This place does no favors for my mood.”

“Your mood isn’t what I’m worried about.”

“Of course not.”

He felt like he was falling but everything was dark well before he hit the ground.

\------------------------

The flames weren’t just surrounding the building, they went out for about three blocks. Stefano had never tried to go so far before. He stretched, pulling his arms back and rolling his neck. It pulled at his abdomen and he hissed. This pain was nothing, he had to remember that. It was nothing, because what he would soon be going through would be so much worse. 

“Give him here,” Stefano asked, his arm extended, his eye on the disciples that were coming towards them, unhindered by the flames. “I need to be holding onto you both, not a proxy, if I’m to do this.”

“You sure you can manage this? It’s pretty far,” Esmeralda handed him over, watching Stefano struggle to get him over his shoulder. She didn’t hide that she wanted to show how much stronger she was. 

“As with many things in my life, it seems I do not have much choice.” He wiped his hair away from the lens in his eye, the one that he usually hid. He usually, didn’t bother to have it exposed for this, but he needed whatever advantage he could get with this. So he zoomed in, picked the first place he could see that without flame, and held out his hand. 

The moment he felt Esmeralda’s hand in his, he stepped forward. 

\------------------------

Gunfire. Shouting. Groaning. He didn’t want to open his eyes. 

“I’m out of bullets!” Stefano called out. He sounded tired. This place was so terrible to all of them. He wished they could all just go to sleep, take a nap somewhere. They’d earned that, surely. 

“Then grab another gun! Sebastian’s not using them!” Torres gritted out. 

A moment, two, enough for him to open his eyes, and Stefano was before him, not looking at his face but his gun holsters, slipping the revolver back into place as he took the shotgun in its stead. He was pale, the blood on his face making him look paler. His hair was a mess, as were his clothes, and he looked absolutely singed in placed. 

“Stemph…” Sebastian was able to groan and that got Stefano looking at him, his eye bloodshot and puffy. 

And the darkness took him again. 

\--------------------------

The Post Office. That was where they were headed. He could see the burns on Esmeralda’s arms, but he didn’t ask about them, could feel his own burned flesh prick and solder on his back. Still burning, the blisters growing and popping, skin having evaporated from the heat alone. He’d gotten them past the fire, but just barely. He’d had to throw Sebastian to keep him from burning. 

And now they were running through the streets, coughing, fighting off as many of those things, both Theodore’s and the others, as best they could. They didn’t bother to look back, just keep running forward. Stefano didn’t know why they were going to the post office of all places. 

Esmeralda called out and he took over firing, shooting the gray thing, two torsos meeting in the center, two heads, four arms, none of them making any sense, none of them human anyone, while she reloaded. She lifted Sebastian off of the bench she’d rested him against and they were running once more, firing as they went. 

The post office was just before the world ended and he could have sworn there had been more street there before. Beacon was getting smaller by the moment, by the day, it was impossible to tell. The building was small though and mostly secluded. 

Esmeralda stopped in front of it, sliding Sebastian down to a sitting position before the door. 

“What are you doing?” Stefano shouted, watching as she stepped away from the unconscious man, pouring out her ammunition on the citizens that were approaching them. 

“You’re not coming with us!” she growled through clenched teeth. “It’s a safe house, and we’re going into the Marrow from there. You won’t be able to come inside.”

One of them got a bit too close and she turned almost too late to see Stefano destroy its head with a shell from the shotgun. 

“I want to give you a chance, okay? I know how much it can suck to not be able to say goodbye.” This time Esmeralda smiled at him and he felt himself warm to the idea. 

He made his way to Sebastian, even though he was still unconscious. He wished the man would wake up, just for a moment. Esmeralda’s back was turned, she was keeping the creatures away. He was as alone with Sebastian as he could possibly be. 

He cupped one of Sebastian’s cheeks in his hand, put their foreheads together and, for a moment, just breathed. He could smell Sebastian, old old whiskey, stale cologne, sweat, blood. He tired to memorize it. He wanted to keep that smell, while not exactly pleasant, with him. He wanted to keep all of Sebastian with him. He didn’t want to go. 

“I’m sorry,” Stefano tried not whimper as he said it, his thumb copying the circles that Sebastian had traced against his own flesh when he was hurting. “I didn’t know, I didn’t know anything, and I’m sorry about this. I’m going to have to take it from you while you sleep and I know, that isn’t exactly the most gentlemanly thing but if you knew what was going to happen, what I am resigned to, I hope you won’t hate me for it.”

\-----------------------

The sound of gunfire was still there, was still the main thing he could hear, but it was just one gun, firing rapidly. Torres. He couldn’t hear Stefano. He wanted to call out, to find him. Assuredly he hadn’t lost him already. 

But there was a pressure against him, on the side of his face, cold and shaking, and on his mouth, soft and warm and a bit timid. It took a moment for him to recognize what it was, it had been so long since he’d last been kissed. Stefano’s lips were sharp along the edges, but the skin wasn’t dry at all and he was kissing him so gently, so carefully, as if he didn’t want Sebastian to wake up, to notice him. That was so different from anything else that Stefano did. 

He didn’t make a sound. He did nothing. He didn’t want Stefano to stop. 

He did though, quickly enough, his hand releasing his cheek at the same time. 

“I’m sorry,” he heard, and “thank you.”

\-------------------------

Esmeralda got Sebastian up over her shoulder. There were still some out there, he could hear them rustling around, but they were far away. 

“Good luck,” she nodded at him, opening the door, “with whatever you end up doing.”

“Thank you.” He couldn’t force himself to sound nonplussed. There was no way that luck would aid him in any way. 

\-------------------------

Tiles. There were tiles under their feet. They were moving slower now. He didn’t hear enough footsteps. 

“Come on, come on,” he heard Torres sigh, “we’re almost there.”

\-------------------------

He had to go back. He’d already tested the length of his leash. He could feel it strain. He had to go back to Paolo. 

He touched his lips almost reverently, feeling the ghost of the kiss he’d stolen. He wouldn’t forget it. He wouldn’t allow himself to. For a moment, he thought to find some way of writing to Sebastian, to let him know why he was gone, but that would do nothing. Nothing would get Sebastian to come after him like a letter saying not to. He was that kind of man. 

No, Stefano would disappear into Union, never to be seen again. It would be better that way, for both of them. 

\-------------------------

One set of gunfire again, but no warmth against them. He opened his eyes, finding the light bright fluorescent, the lighting of the Marrow. Stefano wouldn’t be there then. 

What there were against the rules that Torres had recited so well, were the Union Citizens, the Lost, and they were there in droves. It must have been because they’d been brought here some other way, not through the safe houses. 

Torres turned, shooting a few more. Her gun didn’t pack a punch. 

She was bloodied. There were too many of them. She needed help. 

Sebastian reached for his gun, seeing one pounce on her back, digging into her with its teeth. He was unconscious before he even touched it. 

\------------------------

He stood in front of the tower, in front of the flames, his head bowed. His back was still scorched, his belly still full of pieces of shotgun shell. Paolo would be displeased, having to fix him up again. He doubted he could even get through the flames now, didn’t have that drive, that adrenaline to overexert himself. 

He didn’t need to. 

The flames parted, leaving a charred path for him to walk through. He could see the disciples, stopped in place standing at attention, as if he’d ever been more than an army photographer. They looked at him as if he was someone important. 

He had been, but that was a different life. He tried not to let his pride swell. He would not be an artist anymore, he would not be powerful, he would not sway the world with his creations. He would be a slave. He had handed himself over so willingly, and seeing Sebastian safe, he wouldn’t change it for the world. 

The doors opened for him. Paolo was standing at Theodore’s side. He was smiling apparently pleased. Theodore did not seem impressed, but took a step back to let Stefano in. 

“Welcome, Stefano,” he said, unmoving, “welcome home. 

Stefano closed his eye, letting his shoulders slump, whatever fight there still was within in, fall disparagingly, to the floor.


	17. Chapter 17

“Sebastian? What’s wrong? Are you alright?” 

Sebastian opened his eyes, finding bright blue before him, but there were two eyes before him instead of just one and there were far too many pale colors for this to be Stefano. Not to mention the voice was all wrong as well. 

“You’ve been working too hard. It’s making you delirious.” Myra. It had to be Myra. 

He woke up, her name on his lips, alone in his bed. There was a heat on the mattress next to him, but there was no one there. He pulled himself up, wishing not to, desiring nothing but laying back down and sleeping a bit more, shake the dream from his head. He was home, in a bed that had burned away long before, and Beacon was so far away. 

It was bright, but there was no sound, no birds outside, the sound of Lily’s voice absent. The room smelled like that white fluid that he’d been submerged in, when entering Beacon. That wasn’t a dream. This was. 

He pulled himself up and out of the bedroom, finding the rest of the house as he remembered it. Lily’s drawings on the walls, wedding pictures in their frames, everything clean and well lit and free of the horrors he’d seen. He felt like his presence sullied it. 

He went to Lily’s room. There were a few toys strewn across the floor, a new masterpiece in the works on her isle. She was nowhere to be seen though. He wandered through it, hoping for some clue, just basking in it. It was her room. It smelled like her shampoo, their laundry detergent, underneath the smell of that fluid. It smelled like her. He just stood there, wishing the room had stayed that way, that the fire had never come, that Mobius had never happened, until he’d memorized the location of every stuffed animal. He knew them all by name. 

He saw her, for a moment, as he went downstairs, just a memory, a ghost, as she darted past, giggling. Still, there was a smile on his face, unadulterated. He’d missed her, so much. Just this, it was enough to get all of the nostalgia back, to bring his hope into focus, to ground him, to get him ready to hunt for her again. And he wasn’t alone now, he had people to help him. 

The kitchen still had fruit in it, a few dishes in the sink. He hadn’t been any god at keeping a clean kitchen once they were gone. There was a sheet of paper on the counter though, laid heavy with Myra’s handwriting. He didn’t bother to pick it up. He already knew what it said. 

Just looking at it, he could feel the tears prick at his eyes, and he brought a hand to the bridge of his nose, trying to will them away. 

“I’m so sorry, Sebastian.” That voice again. He pulled his hand down. There, standing in the sliding glass doorway as Myra, exactly like she was the day she’d left, wearing the earrings he’d given her, that she’d worn for their wedding. He blinked a few times, trying to will her away if she wasn’t really there. He didn’t think he could stand anymore illusions right now. “You’ve endured so much. All this time.”

“It’s my fault,” he admitted, fighting the urge to jump the counter, to run to her, to wrap her in his arms. She was there, she was really there. And it was really her. “You tried to tell me. But I didn’t listen.”

He made it to the living room, where she was. She was so clean, so pristine. He was a mess, covered in grime, in blood, in death. There was no way. Even through his blinking, the shaking of his head, she was still there, but she couldn’t have been. The last time he’d seen her, she was something else, she couldn’t have been here now. 

“And now I’m so messed up, I’m talking to a hallucination.” He dropped to the couch, moving slowly. “I failed you. I couldn’t save Lily from the fire… I’ve either killed or maimed all but two of my allies.”

He put his head in his hands. There was knot in his throat. He wanted to be touched. Something told him that Stefano would have touched him, had he been here, but Myra, she’d always been a bit slow to do that kind of thing. He wanted her hands on him now, to hold him, to make things alright. She could fix anything. 

“That’s not true, Sebastian.” No touch came, “There was no fire to save her from. You know this now.”

“But I couldn’t protect her.”

“How could you? Mobius is a force of nature.” she was sitting next to him now. He didn’t even feel her sit there. “What you’re doing, it’s like blaming yourself for an earthquake. It wasn’t your fault.” she put her hand on his thigh and he could feel how cold it was, like death, dripping through his pant leg. “You’re here now and you’re not alone anymore. There are others here to help you, that man, as much as it pains me to say it, is such a great boon to you and Lily both, even though neither of you may see it yet.”

She looked away, her face sad. Sebastian licked his lips. He didn’t know what to say. She almost seemed jealous of Stefano and the fact that she even knew about him made Sebastian uncomfortable, make the fact that she was just part of his imagination more apparent. 

“You have to stop torturing yourself.” He looked at her. Her cool blue eyes never left his face. He’d changed so much since he’d last seen her like this. “You’re a good man, Sebastian. That’s why I married you. That’s why Joseph love you. And that’s why Stefano cares so much for you.” she shook his leg lightly, the smile on her face reserved, small, just for him, “This time, you can save her. You have help.”

He felt himself relax, as if he’d been tensing all of his muscles all this time. He could feel his expression shift, the wrinkles around his eyes fade from their stern hold. He looked at his hand, so close to hers. He didn’t know why it was so difficult for him to take it, but he moved, tried to, and when his hand finally landed hers was gone. 

She stood walking back towards the door. She hadn’t seen him try. She didn’t see how the tension flared back into him, how he reached for her, tried to get her back, as she walked back towards the slider. 

“You have to stay strong, not just for your sake. For hers, for his as well. Don’t let the past defeat you.” She turned back towards him. “I forgive you. And Lily will too. Stefano, he has no need too, but you have to find him, make things right with him. I know you like him, and he will get you to Lily, when you can’t get to her yourself.”

He wanted to argue, to deny his feelings for Stefano. She was right though, she always was. And she had been so good about his love for Joseph, he didn’t know why he’d worried so much. 

“But the most important thing is that you forgive yourself.”

“Forgive yourself...” he repeated it back, feeling a cool breeze that shouldn’t have been there. 

She smiled at him, both pained and in love, before everything faded back to white. 

\------------------------------

He hadn’t expected this. From his relationship with Paolo before, he’d expected to be put in a similar position to the one he’d been in, used for sex and experimental surgeries, a scalpel trying to remove the damages of war. He hadn’t been expecting to be sat down in a chair in Theodore’s throne room, situated between the two men, and given a haircut. 

“Well, the artist was a complete failure, it seems,” Paolo muttered, cutting through his bangs, revealing the camera lens to the world and hot air of the building. “But we can try again.”

“We need to,” Theodore’s arms were crossed over his chest, watching the pair of them, “if we wish to succeed at all in this, it will only come with the power of the Core.”

“And Stefano will get it for us, won’t you, Stefano?” 

Stefano didn’t trust himself to speak. He had so many questions, so many arguments. He nodded instead. He had given himself willingly to Paolo. He could do with him as he wished. 

“We will destroy the artist, lay Stefano bare, and then, we will create something new, something that will never falter or fail.”

“The soldier!” Paolo exclaimed, though Theodore didn’t seem the least bit surprised. “That’s what you should have gone with from the first place.” Paolo set down the scissors he’d been using and pulled out a razor, using it dry against the remains of Stefano’s dark hair. 

“Yes, the soldier. Obedient, brave, unquestioning. Conditioning him will take time, but not much. And then, we will have something far more unstoppable.”

Stefano wanted to pull away. He’d thought he would be Paolo’s not Theodore’s. He thought he knew what was coming for him. He didn’t want to hurt Lily anymore, didn’t want to lead to her getting hurt. She was innocent in all of this. Hurting her, it would hurt Sebastian too and that brought all sorts of terrible fears and concepts to mind. 

“What about Sebastian?” his voice was quiet and, at first, he worried no one heard him, prayed no one heard him. 

“Sebastian has defied me at every step,” Theodore didn’t move. Stefano’s head was down but he wouldn’t be surprised if Theodore’s mouth was closed the entire time. “Has failed to listen to reason. These thoughts, this compassion, you feel for him, it has tarnished you, turned you from the light. We will cure you of it. And if you come upon him in your travels, you will destroy him.”

Stefano hung his head further, so as not to let them see the hatred in his eye. The razor was at the back of his neck. It would be so easy to throw his head back and impale himself on it, to be free of all this. 

He had done this to save Sebastian, and they were using him to kill him instead. 

“You shouldn’t worry about Sebastian,” Paolo dragged the blade behind his ear. “Do you want to know a secret? You’re not the only one who made me a promise. Back in the theatre? Sebastian promised you to me.”

\---------------------------

He was sitting against a wall in Hoffman’s safe house. He didn’t know how he got there but he was sore and his head was pounding. 

“Ugh… what?”

He pulled himself to his feet, shaking the sleep from his head. When he opened his eyes he saw Hoffman, on her knees, next to Torres, who was lying far too still under a blanket. 

“Hoffman?” his voice was shaking, “What happened?”

There was a lot of blood. He walked over, slowly. Torres had been fine. She’d fought a lot of those things out there but she’d done that before. Now though, she was just lying there. 

“She brought you here, her and Stefano but, you know he can’t come in,” she bowed her head as if this was, somehow, her fault. “I’m sorry, Sebastian. I tried to save her, but there were too many wounds, too much damage.”  
Sebastian’s mind raced. “No, if I had been there...”

“Nothing would have changed, I’m sure. She wasn’t alone. She told me about what happened. She had Stefano with her, and he took care of a lot of them, but once you were both in the Marrow, she got desperate. She was running out of bullets. Stefano had already gone through your supply.”

He patted down his packs, finding them all a lot lighter. If Stefano had gone through that many bullets, there must have been a lot of them. His military training had paid off, he was a far better shot than Sebastian was. He really wouldn’t have been able to do better. He’d slowed her down though, and his mind couldn’t stop producing new reasons to blame himself. 

“Dammit, she didn’t have to die like that. She was a good… soldier.” he’d heard that before, ‘good soldier’, heard it a million times, and for some reason it now hit him like something vile. “She just wanted to save Lily… and now she’s dead.”

He backed away to go lean against a wall, to wallow in his own self hatred. Hoffman watched him, cold and distant, like she was studying him. He was sure that she was. 

“It’s not your fault,” she was good at it, knew exactly what he was thinking, “this was her choice. Don’t let Theodore do this to you.” She came to his side, placed a hand on his shoulder. “He made you shoot Stefano. He made you see things that weren’t there, manipulated you, tried to make you into something you’re not. You’re not guilty here.”

He had. He’d almost forgotten that. His stomach tightened but then unfurled at her words. He couldn’t let this take him down. 

“You’re right… that goddamn son of a bitch. This is what he wants. Trying to make me feel guilty.” 

He had to forgive himself. He had to be better to himself. 

“But he’s the one who did this. He’s the guilty one.”

\-----------------------------

“We’re going to have to take him back, rebuild him.”

“Don’t you worry about that, my friend, I know the way.”

There was sand everywhere. He didn’t have a visor like the others and it stung as it hit his eyes. He tried to blink it away. His eyes. He kept going, trying to keep away from the foreign thought, the foreign feeling. He had a job to do. 

There was sand being kicked up from the feet of soldiers. He photographed it, not art, never art, just a photo. He had to take photographs to record what was happening, to make the newspapers and magazines and those on high happy back in the comforts of home. 

There was gunfire ahead and he ran faster, camera at the ready. He didn’t have a gun like they did, the heavy tactical thing. He had a pistol, that was all, but he was good with it. Aiming a camera and aiming a gun was the same. He wasn’t there to fight. He was there take photographs. 

“His memory is teeming with battle, with all of the obedience and training that we need.”

“That may be so, but we don’t want a mortal man.”

“I am no mortal, Father, and I am the one making him as he should be, he will be more than he was.”

He was on his belly, pushing himself, with all that weight on his back. His brothers, his betters, those who would fight and die while he followed, squirmed alongside him. There was barbed wire at their back, above their heavy packs. There was a man above that, shouting out orders. 

He wasn’t there to fight, he had a job to do. He knew that pulled him away from the rest. He knew that they didn’t approve of him, more for the fact that he was no American than that he wouldn’t die for them. He had no business in their war. He wasn’t fighting for their country. He wasn’t fighting at all. 

He pulled himself out from under the obstacle, hearing the man yell, direct them to the next. The rope bit into his hands and he knew, already that his skin was too soft, he was too soft, for the war he was preparing for. He pulled himself up, his arms were strong enough, at least, stranger than what he needed them to be for what he would do. 

“We’re getting there.”

“How can you be certain?”

“You’re seeing it too, are you not? Inside his mind.”

“Of course.”

“Just a little more.”

Stand at attention. Go. Stop. Run. Shoot. Good soldier. He knew what to do. He knew how to stand. His fatigues were clean and pressed, his pack was in order. He didn’t know about the explosion that was coming for him. He didn’t know about the inspiration that would sit in the next roll of film. 

He heard the order, he obeyed. He went out into the long stretch of desert with his compatriots. They still sneered at him, still saw him as the Italian there to make his fame and fortune while they bled. They didn’t know either. 

His gun was at the ready. His armor was lesser than theirs but still worn with pride. He would shoot, though not with a gun. He was there, he was with them. And he would lose with them too. 

He was a good soldier. 

\-------------------------

They knew where Theodore was and Hoffman had a plan to get to him, it just wasn’t ready yet. He’d expected her to leave him, to go and work on whatever it was that O’Neal had been working on before he’d been turned to Theodore’s side. Instead she followed Sebastian through her safe house, watched as he got himself ready, drinking her coffee and making more bullets. 

“Esmeralda…” she shook her head, trying to come up with the right way to say it, while her body was still cooling in the room. “Sebastian, she told me a lot of what happened out there, how Stefano was acting.”

Sebastian looked up from his work. This sounded a lot like an apology, though he didn’t know what Hoffman had to apologize for. 

“I think, perhaps, I wasn’t so wrong in my initial judgment of him, back before he was put into STEM. A psychopath could, if they knew they were a psychopath, pretend well enough to get past my tests, but I think he may have been genuine, at least for the most part. This place changes people, if they’re here for too long.”

Sebastian nodded. He knew all of this. Still, it was good to hear. “I suspected as much. Myra wasn’t a psychopath before she came in here, but she changed just as well.”

“I wonder if it has to do with being here and knowing that it isn’t real, that you can manipulate it like a lucid dream,” she theorized. “But that’s not what I want to talk about. Esmeralda told me that she gave him some time to say goodbye to you, that she had a feeling that he was leaving and not coming back. He was putting himself in far more danger than he needed to, almost like getting you back here was a suicide mission that he was happy to take. It sounds like he’s in trouble.”

Sebastian stopped. He stared at her. If Stefano was in danger, that took precedence over killing Theodore. Not over finding Lily, but he had no idea where to start with that. Stefano, he needed him, not just to help him against Paolo and Theodore and whatever over obstacles he’d be facing, but he needed him. He needed him there, safe, like Joseph, like Myra. He needed him. 

“Any idea where he was going?”

Hoffman shook her head, “Esmeralda didn’t say. I don’t think she knew. It was just a hunch.”

“I’d bet she was really good with her hunches though.” He chanced a glance over at her, everything hidden under a bloodstained blanket. 

Hoffman just nodded. 

\---------------------------

There was sand everywhere. Even when he closed his eye, he could feel it, scrape against him. The memories were over, he was here. There was a man there too, tall, imposing. Valentini walked towards him, found him, standing, the sand not touching him. It seemed to melt before it hit him. 

“Valentini,” the man, the sergeant, said, his hands clasped behind his back. 

Valentini stood at attention, chin raised. He ignored the billowing sand, the blistering heat. 

“Your assignment: Find and capture the Core and return it, safely, here.” The Sergeant, Sergeant Wallace, as if he could forget, raised his hand, pointing in the direction he had to go. 

“Sir, yes Sir!” Valentini didn’t move until he was allowed to and Sergeant Wallace faded away, the sand working as a curtain around him. 

Valentini turned in the direction of his target, finding it easily. Everything was blocked out by the wind, the stinging sand. There was only one building he could see, the civilian style home. He moved towards it, closing one eye against the sand. He didn’t know why only one eye was being bothered by it. He pushed forward. 

There was pain in his leg, in his hand, in his head, and he stumbled. He was weak. He pushed forward. 

He took a step, starting to stumble, impossible to see through the sand. He exploded, as if stepping onto a mine, his body a mess of sand, spurting out in all directions. Then he was standing, the explosion in reverse, body upright, the stagger undone. 

He could work with that. 

He moved forward, pushing into the burst. There was no pain in it. He reconnected elsewhere, closer to the house. It was so easy to move this way. He was light, no pack, no helmet, only his camera around his neck and pistol at his side. He was hardly even wearing tactical gear. He had no problems moving. 

Valentini made it to the house quickly, the sand in his boots, in his clothes. If he wasn’t careful it would be in his gun, in his camera. He had a job to do. 

The house was benign, but the civilian stepping out of the door was not. She saw him for a moment before snarling, a white light pulsing around her. When she screamed he couldn’t understand it but the sand stopped, large pillars of white spikes interlacing around them. She had changed, wearing a white cloak and what looked like dried wax. 

He drew his gun. Her hand turned into a spike. He shot and she blocked, still swearing, cursing yelling. He didn’t care. She was in between him and his goal. He fired until the gun was empty. She rushed him, blade at the ready, ready to impale him. He burst into sand in the last moment, reappearing behind her. She was fast though and nothing in his training told him about strange powers. 

He was only able to make it to the steps of the house before he was stuck, not even able to burst into sand like he had before. Looking down, there was white ooze over his feet. He’d stepped into something and it was sucking him in like quicksand. 

He spun, trying to dodge her, but the blade pierced him in the shoulder, going deep. There was no pain. He grabbed something with a trigger, raised it, and snapped a photo. She froze, preserved in amber, and he was able to pull the spike out of his chest. There was no blood, just sand, pouring onto his shirt. 

She still didn’t move. 

He pulled out his knife. With her like this, unmoving, he had all the power here. It felt strange, wrong. 

His hand was missing two fingers. The skin was a mass of scar tissue. 

He plunged the knife into her chest, withdrew it, and shoved it in twice more. 

He pulled his feet out from the white ooze and burst up the stairs. 

\--------------------------

“Shit, that really is a stronghold,” Sebastian whispered to himself, looking at the tower, burning, in the center of the burning remains of Union. 

There was a ringing on his side. For a moment he hoped it was Stefano, a long moment, longer than he’d like to admit. He wanted to know what was going on, why he’d vanished the way he had, what kind of trouble he’d gotten himself into. 

It was Kidman, “What’s going on in there, Sebastian? STEM is going crazy. It seems like it’s becoming even more destabilized.” 

“You don’t know the half of it,” Sebastian hung onto the last word, wanting to give more, to pour out everything that had happened. 

“I take it you had something to do with it?”

“I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t have to, Kidman,” he paused, “I’m going to finish this, but I have to ask you a favor first.”

“Anything for you, Sebastian.”

He couldn’t believe he was going to ask this. He was going to save Lily. He had just about everything he needed to, including his own mental strength, to do it, too. It was against The Plan, it was against his better judgment, and it was against his time. 

“Can you track Stefano? The way you do me?” 

“No.” Her voice was almost cold, “I can only track you because of the tracer fluid we gave you and the amount you’ve been in there. You spend much longer in there and I won’t be able to see you at all. That’s why we couldn’t trace the other Mobius operatives. No one even attempted with the Union citizens, it didn’t matter, there were too many of them.”

He nodded. He didn’t like it, but it made sense. “Alright. I’m gonna save Lily. And nothing can stop me this time.”

“Good luck, Sebastian. And… keep me posted, okay? It’s important that I know what’s going on in there so I can… help you again. You get me?”

“I do. I’ll be in touch.”

\----------------------

He made his way to the Core. He knew exactly where it was, he didn’t question it. Up the stairs, follow the drawings. Everywhere else there was sand. He made it into a bedroom. 

There, in the bed. Under the blankets. There was the Core. His target. He walked over to it, yanked off the covers. 

Underneath the blankets, as he had come to expect, was the Core. The Core was a little girl, of which he was not surprised, though he did not know why. She was in pink pajamas, but the cold air was waking her. 

Her blue eyes were wide when they stared up at him, and then she saw the bloody knife at his side and screamed. Her hands were raised, and when she looked through them, she saw his face differently, and she spoke. 

He understood. 

“Stefano?”


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Didn't quite get where I wanted to with this chapter but honestly, it's a big enough scene that it may require a chapter all to itself. I'm sure you can guess what's about to happen.

Dead. Of course Yukiko was dead. Everyone else had died, all of the other Mobius agents who had tried to help him in his search for Lily. It was like just getting too close to him was dangerous, Stefano having vanished to his own troubles, Myra losing herself to this place. He tried to brush it aside, to see it as just the mission, it wasn’t him that was the problem, it was STEM itself. He remembered though, his time outside, how he’d spent the last few years all alone, too crazy, too dangerous, for anyone to come in. Even before that, his friends were always more likely to give their lives so he could keep going, in the force and outside of it. 

“I’m sorry, Yukikio. I’ll make him pay, I promise.” he started down the long hallway, embers falling around him like snow. She’d given her life for Lily, for him to have a chance. He couldn’t wallow in it. He hadn’t been the one to kill her. He had to remind himself of that. Theodore wasn’t going to stop him, not now, not when he was so close. 

He ran through a destroyed church, the pews all in a menagerie of disarray. For someone who claimed to be a holy man, Theodore didn’t care much about keeping up appearances. Wherever he was going to go after this, his appearance would be the least of his concerns. There were supplies there though, herbs and medicines laid across a small altar, a gift to the man himself. Sebastian tucked them away. He’d used almost everything outside. 

\--------------------------

The Core was sobbing against him and he put her head against his neck, though he didn’t know if that was to comfort her or to silence her. She struggled, tried to pull herself out of his grip, but she was small and he was so much stronger than she was. He didn’t budge. He had a job to do. 

He walked by the enemy combatant quickly, looking at the path back. Still, it was walls of sand, impossible for him to miss his target, the building on fire. It was a stronghold, a fortress, and he knew the way. He would be let in with open arms. A job well done. 

“Lily,” came the sputtering, enraged voice of the woman that he’d stabbed so eloquently. 

He turned, saw her rising up. Her hood had fallen away from her face, her eyes hollow behind the mask of white. He drew his pistol, aiming and firing before she could pull herself to her feet. The bullet shattered the white mask, revealing the red wormy things behind it. 

He burst into sand, as did the Core, and reappeared further down the path, not looking to see if she fell. 

\---------------------------

The stairwell stretched as a form of static crackled around him, just noise. The stairs were bright, threatening t combust and drop him into a pit that he doubted had a true end. The stairwell wasn’t real, neither was the pit. They were all of Theodore’s design. 

“You’ll never get there,” his voice was condescending, as always, “Just like the last time you wanted to save her.”

He ran. He wasn’t going to fail now, wouldn’t fall to this. He’d never stopped wanting to save her. 

The stairwell vanished and he was back where he was, on a much shorter set of stairs, the lighting all red, blood and fire licking at his feet. 

“Dammit, you’re not going to get to me!” he called out to the voice, not knowing if Theodore could hear him. 

There were a lot of stairs. Not as many in Theodore’s vision, but still a lot. He wished that Stefano was with him, could guide him through all of this. He knew the lay out well enough. He didn’t stop walking as he pulled out his radio, turned it to Stefano’s frequency. 

Perhaps he was still out there, perhaps he would listen to Sebastian. He didn’t want to put the other man in further danger than he was already in, but he needed him. The more he thought on it the more he knew that to be true. He needed Stefano, not just here, but after as well. He wondered if there was any chance that Stefano needed him as well. 

His fingers touched his lips. The ghost of the kiss was gone but the memory was still there. Stefano had said something, about theft, about where he was going. Sebastian could hardly remember it now. 

“Your resolve is pointless, as if your dependency on those around you,” Theodore’s voice came through the radio, as it had once before, and Sebastian cast the idea of calling for his friend aside, putting it back on his hip. He knew he wouldn’t get through. “Those you care about either die or betray you. There is no third option. You will crawl before me, alone and broken.”

He pushed through a set of double doors, ash in piles around the space. Not a maze, not a room that made any sense, just walls and stairs and barricades before a large door made of bars. Some of those creatures, the ones that burst into flame, pulled themselves up out of the piles, shaking the ash off of themselves before beginning their hunt for him. 

“My disciples will break you.”

\--------------------------------

Sergeant Wallace took the Core from him with a smile. The Core was not smiling. As much as she had struggled, now she was reaching back, panic in her eyes. 

“Good work, soldier.” He swelled at the praise, his chest rising as he stood at attention, “I will put you in the doctor’s hands now. He has more use for you after your success than I.”

“Sir, yes sir!” he replied. 

Dr. Trevisani stepped forward, looking him over with a scowl. He did not move. He knew his duty, knew how to show respect. “You are certain father? That you have no more need of him?”

“He has succeeded in his task,” Sergeant Wallace explained, “and I made you a promise. You may do what you will, although I would request that you leave him in working condition. Castellanos is on his way here, and he will do what he can to take back the Core.”

Dr. Trevisani put a hand on either side of his face, holding him steady. The Core was screaming his name. His eye stayed on the doctor. “Shit, you’re hard to look at Valentini. Yes, Father, I will keep him in fighting shape. Just have some cosmetic changes I would like to make.”

“As you will. Once this is over and Castellanos is dead, our contract will have been completed. This world will be saved, and the other will bend to our will.”

Dr. Trevisani put a hand on his shoulder and they both burst into sand, to arrive somewhere else. 

\-----------------------------

More stairs, though these ones were in a spiral, made of metal that creaked under foot. He had even fewer tools at his disposal now. He had to hope he’d come across a stash soon, before he found Theodore. He wouldn’t be much of a threat to him as he was. 

“You have failed. Can you not tell?” Theodore’s voice echoed around him as every flame burst, the walls around him shuddering as the metal shrieked in the change. He could feel it, his skin started to cook on his body, sweat pouring down him, soaking him instantly. The flames didn’t burn down either, each growing more oppressive. “I have the power of the Core.”

As hot as he was, his heart felt cold and he shook from a chill of the concept of failure. He was too late. Union was going to be Theodore’s. 

“Why does everyone want to control Union? It’s not even real!” he called out. If he’d failed, there was no reason that Theodore would deny him some truths. 

“Union is better than reality. Union is Mobius. Their minds are connected to it,” Theodore explained.

Sebastian didn’t want to ask why he was still alive. Surely, if Theodore had succeeded, he had no reason to keep Sebastian alive. It would be foolish to think he was toying with him. There was something more here. 

“To control Union is to control THEM. To control THEM is to control the world.”

He could see the top now, the light up above. 

“And how do I fit into all this?” he asked, reaching it, finding a few tools but not enough. 

“There are still a few hindrances in my way. I need you to deal with them.”

“Like Hell I’ll help an asshole like you.”

\-----------------------------

He’d been in pain. He wasn’t now. Now he was floating, close to sleep, and he didn’t mind what Dr. Trevisani did to him. The needle had stung, just a little bit, as it had entered him, but he’d been praised and the doctor’s hand had been so gentle against him. This feeling, this floating, sleepy sensation was a reward. 

He did not pull away as Sr. Trevisani approached him with the scalpel, as he began to cut and tear away at the flesh of his eye. That was fine. He was a good soldier. He had done a good job. The hand that didn’t carve at him held his chin so carefully. He felt safe. 

He was given a series of orders. They were all so simple, so easy, to follow. He didn’t need to get out of the chair. 

He was a good soldier. 

\-----------------------------

Another stairwell, another conversation, mostly one sided. 

“I offer you one more chance to join the right side of history. Otherwise you’ll be stuck in your own tortured mind.” 

“I’m not making any deals with you, ‘friend’,” Sebastian spat out. 

Ahead of him was an elevator and he sighed in satisfaction. Ever since Theodore had gotten Lily, things had gotten a bit easier for him. It was almost as if Theodore wanted to get this done with, for Sebastian to tidy up his messes or be killed by him. It was still hard, the heat sapping his strength, but there weren’t anymore enemies in his path. 

He didn’t allow himself to take it easy though. He couldn’t afford to let his guard down. He was so close to Lily, to rescuing her, to getting out of this Hell. She was why Theodore was so much stronger now, but that didn’t make him immortal. It just meant he didn’t have to hunt her down once Theodore was dead. 

“I gave you a chance to help me. Because of your refusal, I have no choice but to punish you severely. I have your daughter and she shall suffer dearly at my hands even while I use her power.”

“Not if I kill you first!” Sebastian grit out.

“Me? You would dare try to kill me?” Theodore’s laugh was strained, even as the flames followed the elevator up to him. “What makes you think this time will be any different? Especially when I have him at my side?”

Him? Sebastian paused. He didn’t know if Theodore meant Paolo or Stefano. He wasn’t for either one of them and he refused to hurt Stefano. Theodore was a master manipulator. He doubted that any Stefano did here would have been of his own choice. Not after all this time. 

“Still hiding away behind your proxies? Letting them do the dirty work for you?” he checked him munitions. He had enough for this, but only if he made every shot count. 

“Come to me, then, if you’re so sure of yourself, of your bravery. I’m sure even your courage will falter.”

The elevator doors opened. 

\-------------------------------

“Paolo, he’s here. We need Valentini ready,” came Sergeant Wallace’s voice, booming, seemingly from everywhere. 

Dr. Trevisani grimaced, wiping his hands, red, on his pants. “Not enough time, not to make you presentable. He was angry. 

He stared up at the doctor, still feeling light, still feeling free. Whatever the task was, he would do it. He was a good soldier. He would get the job done. 

Dr. Trevisani wrapped gauze around his head, tightening it enough that he could feel where his head was. 

“One last job, you got that, baby?” Trevisani asked, looking him over, still not happy, “One last job and then you can have another shot and all of this will be over. We’ll be happy.”

He stood. His legs were weak beneath him. He needed them steady. He had a job to do.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys like Joseph. I like Joseph.   
> I've been looking forward to this chapter since this whole thing started.

Theodore sat on his throne, his cane before him, watching, waiting. Sebastian walked towards him. Even though the room was sweltering and black wings, made of embers stretched out behind Theodore as if he were some deliverer, some absolver of sin, Lily was nowhere to be seen. The floor was molten, the stones red out and liquid, oozing down into the stories below. Only the red carpet that Sebastian walked sown was safe. 

“Where is she?” Sebastian growled. 

Theodore raised one hand and, as he spoke, the building trembled, “You have, as always, failed your daughter. She is with me now, and she will suffer as I pull her energy from her, turn this world, and the next into my domain.”

“Stop with the bullshit!” Sebastian wanted to reach for his gun but he couldn’t stop remembering Stefano’s face, that light o of his mouth, when he’d shot him. He wouldn’t be surprised if Theodore tried that again. “We both know that you’re a coward, and you you’re going to do some goddamn mind trick in order to try to get me to falter, but that’s not going to happen! I’m going to keep getting back on my feet. I’m going to keep hunting you down. And that’s not going to change until one of us is dead!”

“Of course, that brute force, always your first line of defense.” Theodore stood and those wings flared, not attached to him but attached the throne itself. As he walked forward the carpet burned black and lumpy arms made of magma sprang up, his disciples trying to follow him, even here. “You may have overcome some of your guilt and pain, but the depths of your past traumas is vast. I know everything about you, I know what lies beneath. I know about your sense of abandonment. How many must you leave in your path to succeed?”

He tapped his cane on the floor and every flame burned brighter, the room filling with so much light Sebastian had to close his eyes, cover them with an arm. 

“Remember them all Sebastian. Remember who you left behind. Remember Beacon.”

This time he did raise his gun, but it was too late. He couldn’t see Theodore. And there was that noise, that horrible tone that swelled into his head, coming from within it. He clutched his scalp, feeling Beacon come rushing back. 

\-----------------------

He followed Doctor Trevisani through the desert, bursting and recombining at his side. He walked with purpose, no need for the crutch that the soldier used. He felt slow, sluggish, but there was no pain and there was an urge for him to succeed. 

He was barely aware that Doctor Trevisani was speaking, though none of the words were orders. 

They walked to a door, large, grandiose. Doctor Trevisani opened it and he was allowed inside, to stand before the Sergeant and his entertainment. There was a man, drenched in sweat and grimy with dried blood. It was hard to see him, through the ever-present storm of sand. 

Sergeant Wallace was watching him with interest, building a new creature out of flame. The sand turned to glass as it touched him, falling and breaking on the floor before it could become a shell. The man pulled out a gun and the flame took it from him. The fire sounded as if it were laughing. 

The man called out to him, a name, even as the gun melted in his hands.

\-----------------------

There was a hand on his gun, wrapped in black leather. 

“Joseph!” Sebastian cried out, watching him pull the clip out and toss the empty gun aside. A monster, he’d expected, something that he’d actually done in Beacon, was assumed, but he had to admit that Theodore surprised him here. 

It wasn’t Joseph, not really, and not just because that was impossible. This was that Joseph who had turned, there were pustules and red lines and growing tumors on his flesh. His veins spread dark under his skin. 

“Shit,” of course, he’d left Joseph there. He’d thought that he was dead. He had no reason to go back for a corpse. That hadn’t stopped the nagging feeling though, that he’d abandoned him. 

He rushed forward, his laugh a wet gurgle in his throat and Sebastian kicked off of him, using the momentum to get away, to turn. A bulb burst above them showering them with sparks. Joseph’s shoes tapped on the linoleum. There were beds, hospital beds, a few desks, Sebastian threw himself down behind one, trying to keep out of sight. Joseph had seen him duck down there but that didn’t matter. There was a corpse there, an ax imbedded in its skull. 

“Does he fuck you as good as me, Sebastian?” it wasn’t Joseph’s voice that crawled out his throat as he stomped over to where Sebastian was hiding. “How long did it take? Weeks? Days? How soon before you found someone else to lick your wounds?”

Sebastian flailed with the ax, trying to keep Joseph off of him, digging the blade of it into Joseph’s shoulder. Ironic, seeing as how often Joseph was the one wielding the ax, covering Sebastian’s back with it. Joseph had always been the most jealous of them. Part of him knew that this wasn’t all make believe, that this would have been how Joseph felt if he were still there, if he wasn’t beyond Sebastian’s reach. 

“Fuck you, Sebastian!” he growled, pulling away, taking the ax with him.

“I’m not fucking anyone!” Sebastian called out, pulling out his shotgun and darting for cover behind one of the beds. “There’s been no one after you!” he didn’t know why he was trying. It didn’t matter. Joseph wasn’t here. None of this was real. 

Joseph rounded the corner, hardly sowed down by the ax in his hand, still dripping with his infected blood. “Don’t you lie to me, Sebastian! We both know what a slut you are! How needy you are of love and attention! You say you have too much love to give but you know that’s bullshit! You’re just easy!”

“Fuck this!” Sebastian gritted out, firing a shot into Joseph’s gut. He gritted his teeth, groaned and staggered, but Sebastian was on his feet, firing again. This time he fell back, the lights flickering around them. 

He dropped to his knees and the infection started to fade, soaking back into his flawless skin. He was coming back to himself, reaching for Sebastian. “You’re not… You’re not going to forget me, are you?” he panted, his free hand searching his wounds. Sebastian was on his knees before him. He knew none of this was real but that didn’t matter. Even in his own head he had to make amends. Beating himself up for this would just give Theodore more ammunition. 

“I’m going to come for you, Joseph. I know you’re alive now. I’m going to get you out.”

A flare and all that infection was back, as were Joseph’s hands, wrapped around his neck, yanking, squeezing. The room was changing a splash of sand spilling out across the linoleum, more of it making a wall, a tornado, around them. 

“If you ever find me,” Joseph gritted out, “I’ll be the monster you never could face!” 

Sebastian yanked on his arm, trying to pull him away. He couldn’t breathe. There was sand in his eyes. 

Joseph’s head burst as a gunshot blasted, Sebastian coated in the blood and bits of brain matter of his partner as he looked up, seeing someone slim and strong and terrifying step through the fog. 

\------------------------

The two were fighting and the man was speaking, but none of it made any sense. He was only getting half of the conversation. 

The girl in Sergeant Wallace’s lap wasn’t moving. The Core, he corrected himself. She was asleep. Everything in the room felt much more intense with her there. He didn’t know how she could sleep through all of this. 

“I’m going to get you out,” the man promised, dragging his attention back. The flames were on the floor, the man reaching for them and he looked so weak there, compassion making him vulnerable. Sergeant Wallace leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. 

The flames grabbed the man by the throat, squeezing, choking and burning. The man was struggling, trying to get away. This was a pathetic fight. The flame was just waiting for the man to let down his guard. He glanced over at Sergeant Wallace, found him grinning. The man was weak, even if he was his superior. He didn’t want to follow the orders of someone weaker than him but he also couldn’t disobey. That would be treason. 

“Valentini,” Sergeant Wallace ordered, “take its place.”

“What?” Doctor Trevisani’s voice was shrill, his eyes wide as he looked to their authority. “If you do that, all our hard could be wasted-

“It was your idea to use the soldier. If he fails, you will have to destroy them both. You do understand, do you not?”

Doctor Trevisani nodded. 

The man’s skin was bubbling, blistering under the heat. He was turning red, burning out. 

He fired. 

\-----------------------

The man was a stranger, his face all solid, his hair cut so tight to his head, hardly anything left. He was a solider, through and through, his military holding of himself so thorough that there could be no guessing about him, no hesitation, no imagination. The man before him was muscle and obedience and deadly aim. If it weren’t for the bandage over his eye, the scar tissue that covered almost a third of his body, hidden by his fatigues, and the missing fingers, he would be unrecognizable. 

Someone else who felt like he’d abandoned them. 

“Stefano.”

Stefano dropped the handgun onto the floor, pulling out a knife instead. It wasn’t that flamboyant, overly detailed blade that he’d used before, it was military, just like the rest of him. 

“You sick bastard!” Sebastian growled, turning towards Theodore. They weren’t in that strange hospital room anymore, but back in the throne room. Theodore was watching in earnest, they were just his entertainment. There was something small and unmoving in his lap. “What the hell did you do to him?”

Stefano lunged forward and Sebastian only had a moment to dodge before he was stumbling past, bursting and reappearing before him, ready to strike again. There was no blue, there was no elegance. When he exploded it was the same way as Paolo, just a sandbag that couldn’t stand the restraints of its burlap anymore. 

He ducked, felt the air split from the speed and accuracy of the blade. Stefano wasn’t holding back. His face was all red from the control he was under, those veins that had once been hidden by his hair throbbing with so much of it. 

This wasn’t Stefano. That wasn’t Joseph. He still had to be careful though, this was still Stefano’s body he was fighting. 

He pulled out his crossbow, running the length of the carpet, towards Theodore, towards Paolo, who must have come in at some point, and towards Lily. That small bundle in Theodore’s lap, too tired to even notice what was going on around her. He as draining her. If he could get to her, he could do anything, he might even be able to stop Stefano. 

A wall of sand burst up from the ground and Sebastian threw up his arms, trying to block the small grains as they pushed up from the ceiling. Parts weren’t moving and he was sure that they’d melted into place on the other side. Stefano was trying to block his path. He was succeeding. 

“I didn’t try to abandon you!” Sebastian called out, loading the crossbow with smoke. He didn’t know what would work against the machine they’d made to fight him. “I wasn’t trying to make you feel unwanted before! I was just trying to tell you that we’d meet up later, but you wouldn’t listen, and I was too frustrated to break through that.”

Stefano exploded again and again, getting closer. He didn’t even know how to aim at him. 

“I’m sorry!” he called out and Stefano was upon him that knife dashing down, cutting through his shirt and the skin underneath, just grazing him as he shoved the crossbow forward, redirecting it just a bit too late. 

Sebastian fired and the smoke blinded them both. Sebastian was coughing, burying his face in the crook of his elbow, feeling fire in his throat. He felt like he was on fire still. He didn’t even know when it had started. He’d expected some kind of response from Stefano as he was blinded but there was nothing from him. He couldn’t even hear him breathe. 

“Stefano? Stefano, are you hearing me?” he had to hope that this was another version of the ‘other Stefano’ where he could be shocked back into being himself. “I said I’m sorry!” he just had to think of a big enough shock. He doubted anything he’d done so far would be strong enough. 

He changed bolts. He could hardly tell what he put in there, but he hoped it was one of the ice bolts. He didn’t want to hurt him. He wouldn’t hurt him. Stefano had been through enough. 

A slice through his back, quick but not precise. If Stefano could see he would be dead already. He gasped, falling forward, and there was another burst, cutting through the fog, a large pillar of sand shooting up, an explosion caught and frozen, making an obstacle. He heard more of them go off and he was left staggering, trying not to get hit by any of them, wondering if this was what it was like in the warzone, how Stefano had been able to survive it, pelted as he must have been to sustain such scarring. 

The first flicker of green and he was firing, hearing the crinkle of ice as it shot out, freezing his opponent in place. The fog faded as he made his way towards Stefano, finding him stuck half in place, cutting at the ice with his knife, his face, horrifyingly, devoid of expression. 

“Shit, they really fucked you up, didn’t they?” Sebastian grit out, wanting to reach out. Reaching to Stefano like this was like reaching for a wolf in a trap and the knife left the job of slicing at ice to go for his face instead. “Woah!” Sebastian pulled away, then tried again, letting the blade go past him so he could grab Stefano’s arm. 

The ice was melting fast, the heat of the room adding to it all. Stefano was stronger than Sebastian had ever anticipated and he yanked his arm back, dragging Sebastian with it. He had to keep a firm grip, try to shift it, keep the blade away from him, as he got closer. Stefnao was struggling to get out, he wasn’t paying enough attention to what Sebastian was doing. 

He hoped this would work. 

He put his hand on Stefano’s wrecked jaw and the man stilled immediately, eye wide and focused on him. Sebastian fought the urge to wince as he breathed through his blistered throat, trying to keep his features soft. His hand traveled up that side of Stefano’s face, watching his expression all the while. It didn’t seem to change. 

“I’m going to take this off of you, alright?” he asked, even though he knew he wouldn’t get a response. His thumb slipped under the bandage and he dragged it to the side, popping off the tape that kept it down. Stefano could move now but he didn’t he just stood there, allowed this so happen. He didn’t even shiver from the cold of the ice. 

He turned his hand, feeling the hot blood under his skin. His face was so close to Stefano’s, he could reach forward, just a little, and close that gap. The tape popped off and he was shoved back, another wall forcing itself upwards, separating them. 

Sebastian couldn’t see anything. He didn’t know if it was Stefano who had made that or if it were Paolo. He called out to him, hoping that just maybe he’d broken through enough for Stefano to be able to reply. 

\----------------------

The man had touched him. The enemy combatant had done something to make him not move and then had touched him. The touch was like Doctor Trevisani’s: too gentle, too patient, not rough like the war, like fighting, like chaos. He wasn’t supposed to feel things like that. He was supposed to feel blood on his skin. 

He wanted more of that. He didn’t know what to do with that feeling. He had to reject it. 

He had to kill this man. 

He burst forward, trying to get close. The man wasn’t trying to touch him now, was doing nothing to trick him. He was running, like a coward, and there was something that he knew would work well for cowards. He felt powerful here, like he could fight indefinitely, like the Core had been opened and she was filling him with strength eternally. 

The man stepped down and an explosion erupted under his foot, kicking up sand in an arch, a flower, something elegant. He blinked. There was nothing elegant in an explosion. There was no art here. He did not care for art. 

With the mines underfoot, he directed the man to where he wanted them and then he burst in front, halting him. It was so very easy to do, to shove his blade into the man’s gut, to pin him there. There was no fear in the man’s eyes, but no hostility either. He hated what he saw. Resignation and concern and something else. Something he didn’t want to consider. 

\----------------------

He was shaking. He was too tired to keep fighting and he didn’t want to keep fighting. He wanted all of this to be over. He wanted Stefano to be himself, to recognize what was going on. He knew that the man was trouble, that he was in trouble, but he hadn’t anticipated this. He’d gone with his gut instinct, which was always a mistake and Joseph always said that it would catch up to him but now was not the time. 

He lay his hands, both of them, on Stefano’s cheeks. “It’s okay,” he promised, his voice hardly more than a whisper. The knife was hot in his stomach, but it wasn’t moving. His fingers walked slowly up Stefano’s face, so he could bury them under his bandage once more. “It’s okay.”

A flicker, something of an emotion, in Stefano’s face, a hardening of his jaw. Sebastian pulled the bandage away and swallowed his gasp. His eye was ruined. He’d only seen it a little bit before and it was damaged but he couldn’t tell how. Now it looked like a spiderweb of scar tissue had been sliced away ad what had been left underneath, trapped within, had been pulled out. Something like a camera lens was dangling from it, wires barely connecting it to the flesh. Paolo hadn’t put that in there, but he was trying to remove it. 

“Stefano,” he forced himself to make eye contact. Stefano tried to look away, but couldn’t move his head. “Look at me, it’s alright. I’m sorry for what I said and. And I forgive you. Lily, me, you hurt us both, but that was just your body. That wasn’t you, not all of you. I understand now.”

The pulsing veins around his eye started to pale. He wasn’t moving though, still wasn’t himself. Sebastian forced a smile. 

“I know what you took from me, back at the post office. After I shot you. I’m so sorry.” He leaned forward, pressing their foreheads together. Stefano felt so solid against him, so stiff. “I’m going to steal something from you, as well.”

And he kissed him. He tilted just a little bit, let his mouth hang open, let his lips be soft and warm and welcoming. Stefano’s lips were sharp against his, the edges hard ridges, the skin dry. He did not kiss back but allowed himself to be kissed, not pulling away. 

“Please,” Sebastian panted, pressing another kiss to those lips, “come back, Stefano.” 

He felt a hand, an arm, wrap around his waist, making the cut in his back burn. Lips parted, finally letting him in and Stefano was kissing him hard, starving, demanding. He broke the kiss to nuzzle his long nose into Sebastian’s neck and say something that made no sense at all. 

“Perhaps there’s still time for one last photo.”

He pulled himself away as all of the sand fell, facing Theodore and Paolo both. A large burst of light, neon blue, flashed from his eye and everything went still, the two of them all that moved. For a moment, Sebastian thought that they were trapped in it as well. 

Then Stefano fell to the floor, screaming, blood pumping out of his socket like it was a sieve. Sebastian was going down, trying to put his hand on him, but Stefano pushed him away gritting his teeth. “I don’t know how long I can hold it! Go! Get Lily!”

\------------------------

Sebastian was moving too slow and so was he. He couldn’t move, couldn’t step forward, couldn’t do anything as he blood boiled and cooked on the red carpet. Theodore was already starting to move. He was too strong for Stefano, had been before any of this had happened. 

He could hardly think through the pain of what was left of his eye bursting through, trying to do this one last thing for him. The explosion, the damage to his eye, had always been his greatest inspiration. Now he was letting it all out. His muse was burned out, through Theodore’s will, given to Paolo. He would never be able to use it again. 

Sebastian was reaching though, so close to catching Lily. He was almost there. His own blood seeped through his fingers. They’d both hurt each other so much. 

His fingers were on her, tangling in her hair. He was so close. 

Stefano tried to scream, to call out, but there was nothing in him to do so. Theodore even responded before Sebastian did, eyes widening, mouth falling open, as he too started to bleed, his own blood a torrent that landed on Sebastian and Lily both. 

The spell was broken, everyone could move and Lily was just barely starting to stir, to wake, as Sebastian gathered her up in his arms, pulling away. Theodore was shaking, white spreading out like ice from the wound. 

The spike in his chest receded and he fell, finally, in his chair. All of the light, all of the heat, went out, only a few candles lighting the scene. A woman, all in white, a mask made of wax, stepped out from behind the chair. Paolo swore. There were multiple wounds in her chest that had been sealed in a bubbling waxy substance. 

“Myra?” Sebastian asked and there was so much familiarity in his voice, a hint of love that Stefano had never heard anyone use for him, not even from Paolo, that the pain in his chest momentarily surpassed the pain in his head. 

Myra walked towards him, arms outstretched. “She must stay safe.” Sebastian looked like he was about to say something, their daughter in his arms, still tightly held against his chest. “I will protect Lily from anyone who wants to take her.”

Stefano tried to pull himself up to his feet, slipping in his own sweat and blood. All of the sand was gone, just heaps on the floor, melting. He didn’t think he had the power to do anything. He didn’t even have the power to warn Sebastian. It was I Myra’s voice. When she said anyone, Sebastian was a part of that list. 

“You did it.” Praise in Sebastian’s words, “Theodore is dead. We can leave. We can be a family again. Let’s go home.”  
Stefano did cry out this time, right as Paolo pulled out his own pistol, aiming and firing in a fluid motion. The bullet tore through her chest, right next to her heart. 

“No!” Sebastian was screaming. Lily was waking up. Paolo’s eyes were wide. 

She turned on him and Stefano couldn’t see her face but he could tell that she was angry. It was in how she stomped over to him, how he backed away, the fear plastered in his face. Part of Stefano was twisted into glee at his expression but the rest of him was too hurt to care. He wished that the morphine had lasted in his system just a little longer. 

“Mom!” Lily cried out as she shoved that spike into Paolo’s abdomen, watching the white take over his stomach and chest before shoving him into the pit that sat behind the throne. 

Sebastian took a step back, closer to Stefano. His hand was on Lily’s face, shoving it into his neck, trying to protect her mind from what she saw. None of them would escape this place free of trauma. Stefano doubted any of them would escape at all. 

Myra raised her hand, finding it more interesting than her husband, possibly even her daughter. Stefano could feel it writhing beneath him long stripes of white ooze encasing the floor. It gathered beneath her, digging into what was left of this place. 

Everything was shaking, Union falling apart further. There was nothing he could do. He dug his nails into the blood soaked carpet. He hurt and was hurting and wanted to stop, wanted to stop all of this. Sebataion wasn’t getting through to her. She didn’t even see him. It was more than a mask, it was a blindfold but Sebastian was blinded too. He didn’t know what he was dealing with. 

The tower was collapsing, metal screeched, debris fell into the chasms on either side, darkness came closer. 

“Myra?” Sebastian was trying again. Stefano could barely see him, both through the darkness and the haze of pain. He was going to fall unconscious, he knew that, but he held on. He had to hold on. 

A large creature, made out of all that white, pulled itself up on one side, not caring as an iron cage fell onto it, through it, and kept going. One of it’s large hands reached out, going towards Sebastian. He wasn’t paying attention though, all he cared about, in that moment was his family, even if part of his family was trying to cause their doom. 

“S-Seb...” Stefano couldn’t even call out to him, to warn him, as a massive white hand went for him, clutching him. There were other hands growing out of it and they tore Lily from his arms as a scream tore from his throat. 

The thing tossed Sebastian to the side, strong enough that he went past the edge of the walkway, hit what was left of the wall, and fell into the nothingness below. Stefano was certain that he was screaming, though he wasn’t sure, only the pain in his throat warning him of the damage he was causing his own body. Myra only gave him a passing glance as let her monster wrap its fingers around her and she and Lily were lowered on the other side, into the darkness. 

The last of the candles went out and Stefano was left in blissful darkness. He was left alone, in a dark and terrible place. He had no goals, he had no schemes. All he had was pain, which was, after all he’d done, what he deserved. He had been deluding himself to think he could keep Sebastian at all. 

The floor collapsed beneath him and he was falling, following Sebastian into the dark.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just realized this fic was still tagged as "mature" Oops!

He coughed, sputtered, tried to breathe. His lungs were so bruised and battered he could hardly get in a shaky inhale. Opening his eyes he found himself on the roof of a building, but that was all he knew and even that wasn’t certain. Everywhere he looked was nothing but whiteness, a few of those figures he’d seen in Stefano’s gallery, someone else’s ’art’, and more white tickling down from the sky. It wasn’t drastically cold though, none of the white was snow. 

He rolled onto his side, breathing, his body a flare of heat, his heart beating too fast to keep him up and moving. He needed to get up. He had to get moving. Just trying to stand up made his back spasm in pain and he folded over, an arm wrapping around his steadily bleeding gut as his spine argued against any motion. He had supplies. He had to. And he took a few wobbly steps over to a piece of broken wall, leaning against it as he dug through what he still had. 

He still had a few syringes. He shoved one into his thigh and sighed, feeling his strength return, the skin knit back over his wounds, within seconds. He still hadn’t figured out what the herbs were that he was healing himself with, but they were a gift from a god he didn’t believe in. 

Only when he could stand up without black dots swirling before his vision, did he look more closely at his surroundings, walking to the edge of the building. It wasn’t a roof, it was an upper story, but the ceiling had crumbled away. There was a car, half buried in the white powder, and a few other buildings that looked like they would collapse if he touched them, but the whiteness seemed to go on and on. He could tell that there was a hill in the distance, but he couldn’t see if there was anything on it. 

“Stefano?” he called out, turning his gaze over the fields of white. “Stefano?” 

There was no reason for the man to have been there. Sebastian had fallen into this place alone, was thrown and he didn’t want to think of the implications of Myra throwing him away, and Stefano had been hurt, turned against him, turned into something that he wasn’t. He’d been forced to betray Sebastian. He wasn’t out here. 

He made his way to a crooked fire escape, half hanging off of the building. He had to get to the ground before this place collapsed as well as the rest. The fire escape was creaking and groaning and he went further, seeing the bolts fall from their anchors in the brick. He hopped over the railing, going landing by landing, as the whole thing ripped away from the wall. He grit his teeth, hands tight on the railing. There was no one to catch him if he fell. He doubted the powder would be enough to soften his landing anyway. 

By the time he reached the bottom the stairs were completely pulled away from the brick, just a few bolts at the very top keeping it from falling on top of Sebastian as he threw himself off of the bottom steps. 

He panted, taking a moment to catch his breath. And then he saw a shape, moving in the corner of his eye. He turned, seeing a figure making their way through the white. With all of the white, he couldn’t see who it was, but they were covered in white as well, as the color had clung to them, as if they’d been buried in it. 

“Stefano?” he called out again, hoping. 

The figure paused for a moment, looking back over their shoulder. Then they started faster, turning, trying to get closer. The figure was stumbling, as if from a heavy limp. Sebastian hurried towards him. 

He’d only taken a few steps before he tripped on something in the white, too buried to be seen. He half fell, tried to ignore it, but then the refuse groaned. Sebastian looked after the figure, close enough to take the form of a person, before turning his attention back, seeing a large stretch of camouflage from where he’d kicked off the powder. 

“Shit.” he went to his knees and started to wipe off the powder, digging a different figure out.

\---------------------------

Warm arms, strong arms, were wrapped around his chest and he was being held close to someone. He could feel a nose buried into his neck, the scratch of stubble almost long enough to be a beard, against his chest, where his shirt was just barely open enough for it. There was pain, radiating from his eye, or, where his eye should have been, and one of his arms, which hung limply at his side, and his ribs, and, really, all of him. The pain was fading though, being drawn out of him, being pulled down into the heat of the man in front of him. 

He could feel a sting to his eye, a tightness in his throat, and he reached around, a bit of strength coming back into his arm. He wrapped them both around the man who held him, breathing in a scent he was sure he would know anywhere. 

“Sebastian.”

He started to pull away but Stefano clung to him, pulling him back, digging his face down into the man’s chest. He needed to be touched, as rare as that was. He’d thought he’d gotten used to it, that he could go his whole life without touch, but Sebastian was holding him and applying pressure and it felt so good to be held that he buried himself into it, trying to will away the tears that were trying to cloud his sight. 

“I heard I was a good hugger but I didn’t think I was that good.” He laughed. Stefano was falling into place, his body mending and his heart coming to rest in his chest where it was supposed to for the first time in years and Sebastian was laughing. It was deep and more a grunt than anything else, but Stefano filed it away all the same. It was beautiful. 

“I’m certain that your hugs are actually magical,” Stefano replied, though he could not return his mirth. He was too tired, too weak, even though he felt like his wounds were actually healing. 

Sebastian stood up then, pulling Stefano up with him. Sebastian was just a little bit taller than he was and he was much larger in muscle mass, and it was easy for Stefano to stay tucked up against him. 

“I’m sorry,” he whined, so quiet that it was safe. He wasn’t sure if he wanted Sebastian to hear this. It was something that he had to say though. “I’m so sorry. I. I betrayed you. Again. I hurt her. I took her. I. Oh how evil the things I have done. I’m sorry.”

Sebastian tightened his grip, pulling Stefano closer to his chest. “None of that now, you hear me? You didn’t do any of that. I saw you. I fought you. I worked like Hell trying to get you back. And I don’t believe for a second that that was you.”

Stefano wanted. He wanted so badly to pull away from the hug, to press his lips to Sebastian’s. He wanted to kiss him so much that his heart was hammering in his chest. 

“And what, exactly, is this?” 

Stefano stopped, his tears frozen on his cheeks, his heart steady in his chest. He looked up, not moving, to see the man standing behind Sebastian as his throat went dry. 

“Paolo.” He wanted to sob. He wanted to scream. He was so close. He was so close to being free. 

\------------------------

Sebastian spun, releasing Stefano as he did so, facing Paolo in one motion, his hand on his gun. Stefano was kneeling in all that white, frozen in fear and nerves and shock. It was nothing that he should have been. Paolo had been the cause of all of this, Sebastian was sure, even though it was by Theodore’s whims. 

“What do you want from him?” he growled.

Paolo didn’t look threatened. In fact, he didn’t look like he cared at all that Sebastian was there. “That is my property,” he explained, bursting in a cloud of sand, reappearing behind Sebastian, helping Stefano to his feet, as he tutted him softly, as if he were a dog or a child. Sebastian felt sick. “He promised himself to me. As did you. You have no right to even touch him.”

Sebastian’s anger flared within him. The anger that had his gun out of its holster, drawn and aimed, but Paolo was smart and quick and it wasn’t his head that the gun was aimed at but Stefano’s. Stefano’s eye was lowered, his face red and blotchy. He couldn’t hide his expressions behind his hair anymore; he didn’t have any hair. 

“People don’t belong to people, you sick bastard!” Sebastian growled, “He’s not anyone’s property!”

Paolo just smiled, running his hand through Stefano’s stubble, fingers tracing the scar tissue around his eyes. Stefano didn’t respond in any way. He just stood there, taking it, not moving. The closest thing to an expression that was on his face was a tremble to his lips, a tightness when Paolo’s fingers got too close to the gushy hole of his eye socket. 

“And yet, here we are. Tell me, Sebastian, what was your plan? What were going to do with him?” 

Stefano’s remaining eye shifted, looking at Sebastian. He didn’t have any tricks up his sleeves. He didn’t have anything. His shoulders were drooped and his hands were loose fists at his sides. 

“I have been with Stefano ever since he lost his eye, ever since he became disposable to everyone else. I was the one who gave him a chance at a life again. I was the one who picked up the pieces.”

That wasn’t true. That wasn’t what had happened. Stefano was a mess but nothing that Paolo was saying made any sense. Stefano wasn’t disposable, no one was. He had to have friends out there, real friends, people who missed him. Part of him knew that wasn’t the case though, Mobius didn’t pick people who had anything to lose. But he’d never lost his chance at a life. He’d always had that. 

“So tell me, you are trying to get the Core, are trying to leave Union and go back to your precious ‘Real world’, no?” Paolo smiled, lowering his fingers to scrape along Stefano’s neck. “Are you going to take Stefano out of here with you? What then? Do you have any idea what he is out there?”

Stefano tightened, finally reacting, though it wasn’t violently enough, it wasn’t anything enough. He was whispering, far too gently, “Please. Please don’t do this.”

“You were a detective, were you not?” Paolo ignored Stefano’s pleas and Sebastian’s anger was battling with him, trying to decide if he should shoot and get this over with or if he should stop and listen. He didn’t want to shoot Stefano and Paolo seemed perfectly capable of keeping him in front of Sebastian’s bullet. “You must have heard of the Krimson City Killer? Your own beautiful serial killer, all of those women who were missing body parts and lives? They never did catch him though the killings did stop. When was it Stefano? When did the killings stop?”

“I don’t know,” his voice was so quiet that Sebastian barely heard it. 

Paolo had though and he slapped him, hard, across the cheek, catching him as the momentum knocked his head to the side and dragged him back so they were standing as they had been, Stefano’s back to Paolo’s chest. Sebastian’s teeth hurt from how much he was gritting them. 

“When did the killings stop, Stefano?” Paolo repeated. 

Stefano shuddered, the skin between the scars flaring red. He wouldn’t look at Sebastian. “Two years ago?” Sebastian wanted him to look at him. He wanted to know what Stefano was thinking. He didn’t sound certain and that bit of confusion had Sebastian clinging onto hope. 

“And when did you come here to Union?” Paolo asked. 

“Two years ago.”

Paolo turned his attention back to Sebastian, his hands soft and gentle as they stroked Stefano’s jaw and chest once more, as if he were a pet. “So, my friend, what are you planning to do with him once you return to Krimson City?”

At the moment Sebastian couldn’t think about that. All he could think about was gutting Paolo. He hadn’t thought about it all though, even though he knew that he should have. Kidman had warned him, that Stefano was dangerous, he’d seen the articles about the deaths, but he just couldn’t believe that Stefano would do something like that. 

“I’m planning on getting out of here,” Sebastian admitted, “with Stefano and Lily. That’s all I know for now. That’s enough for now.”

“You are foolish then. It would be better for him to stay here, with me, in this place. A master and his, what would you call it?” Stefano shuddered as he pressed a kiss to the red skin of his cheek, “his masterpiece.”

“This whole place is falling apart! If you don’t see that then you’re truly a moron.” There was a spot, just next to Stefano’s hip, where Paolo was vulnerable, unguarded. He wasn’t a great shot, he had to wait, just a bit more space. Just another inch. He didn’t want to make Stefano wait that long. 

“That is if you are capable of taking the Core,” Paolo shrugged. “I don’t think either of us want you to do that.” He tilted Stefano’s head, turning him to face him while his front was still a shield. Stefano closed his eye, flinching, trying to draw back, as Paolo pressed a soft kiss to his lips. Rage flared within Sebastian as the opportunity arose and he dragged his aim down, firing. 

\------------------------

The sound was devastating in such a quiet place, the gunshot echoing through all of the white. Stefano was released as Paolo screamed out in anger and pain and he stumbled to the side, trying to gather his head, his thoughts, back into place. 

Another gunshot, followed by a third, as Sebastian fired into Paolo’s chest, ignoring how it wasn’t blood that sputtered out but sand. Stefano breathed. He didn’t realize how hard it had been to breathe. He was dizzy, lightheaded, and his face burned from the blood flow. 

The bullets may not have been doing anything, but they were stunning Paolo for a moment. Stefano wanted to sit this one out. He didn’t want to fight. He wanted to curl up in a ball and fade out of the world. He didn’t want to exist in this one nor in Krimson City. He’d said it, he’d claimed responsibility for all those deaths, for Paolo. He’d do anything for Paolo and he hated that. He didn’t want that to be his life. It was the life that he had chosen though. 

“Sebastian,” his voice didn’t sound his own, it was weak and wobbly. His legs felt the same way. “You can’t just shoot him!” he had to time his words between each bullet. “Make him solid first!”

That had been something Sebastian had done to him. He didn’t remember it well, he just knew that something had happened and then he was cold and the sand that had made up his torso was all fused. He could be hurt like that. 

Sebastian looked at him, eyes squinted, brows lowered. He was enraged, there was nothing in him other than anger and, for a moment, Stefano could only feel that that rage was directed at him. Sebastian tossed the gun to him though, switching over to the heavy crossbow that practically lived on his back. Stefano caught and fumbled and juggled the gun before gaining control of it. There were only two shots left in it. 

“You better be right about this!” Sebastian loaded the crossbow with an ice bolt, turning as Paolo burst and reappeared behind him, trying to keep his aim and attention in the right place. 

“There!” Stefano called out, aiming, giving Sebastian a chance to get out of the way of Paolo’s knife, which he swung wildly into the air that Sebastian had just been in. 

Before Sebastian could fire though he was gone once more, this time only reappearing behind Stefano. He could tell that was where he was. He didn’t need to turn. Sebastian was aiming at him again, but this time there was a cold blade against his throat. Stefano went still, eye turning, trying to catch Paolo in his peripheral. 

“You wouldn’t dare,” Paolo chuckled in Stefano’s ear, directed at Sebastian. “Better have him be mine than dead, no?”

Stefano raised his hands, surrendering. His eyes were on Sebastian though, his hand steady on the revolver. Sebastian made eye contact with him, looking pale. He didn’t know what to do. Stefano did though. 

“Do it.”

Sebastian fired. The bolt hit him in the chest, luckily in a less sensitive spot and went off, freezing everything around him, including Paolo. He could feel the ice freeze his lungs, the cold spreading, from where the burst pieces had landed. His hand and wrist though, were blessedly free. He changed the position of his hand, angled the gun, and waited. The moment the ice spread over his temple, he fired, shooting Paolo just behind him. 

The first bullet splattered him with sand and he grit his teeth. It was hot. It was an explosion, shrapnel and death raining around him. He was freezing and burning at the same time. He was back there, pain in his eye, death surrounding him. He had no camera. He had a gun. He fired. 

The back of his head was sprayed with hot blood.


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm juggling a lot right now and I'm afraid I'm going to drop everything and it will all shatter. Here's an update though!

Sebastian stared at him. He was expecting a scream, perhaps a look of mania, to burst onto Stefano’s face. This was the man who had abused him for years, as far as he knew, and while many victims would sob and beg for their monsters to return to them, it wasn’t what he’d expected of Stefano. Stefano was an artist and all of his art here had been made from the corpses that he’d made. He was expecting a bit more life in him. He was expecting a bit more joy in the wash of crimson on this white canvas. 

Stefano just stood there, his eye unfocused. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t move. 

Sebastian held out a hand. “The gun, Stefano?”

Stefano waved it, absentmindedly. “It’s empty.”

“Well good,” he said, taking a step forward and taking the gun from him, putting it back into its holster. It was like taking something from someone who was in shock and, looking at him, Sebastian realized that’s what this was. He wished he could get him a blanket, that he could do one of the millions of things he’d been trained to do for those in shock but they just didn’t have the time for that. “I wouldn’t want you hurting yourself.”

At that Stefano laughed and it started off quiet, distant, but grew into a manic sound, echoing horribly in the blank slate of Union. It wasn’t until he went quiet that Sebastian put his hands on him, one on either shoulder, and Stefano jumped as if he was about to be struck again. Sebastian drew closer, bringing his hand to the still red skin, trying to soothe it by smearing his thumb gently across it. Stefano wouldn’t look at him. 

“Did you mean what you said?” Stefano asked and his voice was shaking and the chill was starting to come through and this was bad, this was really bad, but Sebastian didn’t have a blanket for him, didn’t have anything to help. “That you were going to try to leave this place? With Lily?” The next part was so quiet that Sebastian almost didn’t hear it. “With me?”

Sebastian leaned forward, not wanting to see what was left of that eye, not wanting to be so close to it, and putting his forehead against Stefano’s anyway. He breathed, keeping his inhale and exhale calm, trying to get Stefano to join him, to match. “Yes, of course. Once Lily’s gone from here, this whole place is going to collapse. I want you to be out of here too, I want you to be with us.”

Stefano reached up, held Sebastian’s wrist, keeping it on his shoulder, and stared into his eyes. “You don’t know what you’re saying. You don’t know how much of a responsibility that is.”

Sebastian didn’t want to ask, his mouth was dry. “What he said. About the killer.”

Stefano closed his eye. “Do you believe him?”

Sebastian didn’t know what to believe. He knew that standing here, touching Stefano, felt right. He knew that he didn’t want to be alone after all this, even if he was going to have Lily with him, he still wanted Stefano there. He knew that Stefano was capable of bloodshed, of violence, of so much darkness. “I don’t know.”

“I had all of these models, wonderful people, who would come to my studio, and I would take photographs of them,” he whispered and Sebastian was glad he was so close to hear him, “None of them were magnificent. None of them were art. They were all rubbish, with no skill and no imagination. And they all started vanishing. At first I thought they were done with me, moving on to someone who wouldn’t be panned at every gallery show. And then I thought I was cursed, because it kept happening. I moved towns, stayed in different circles, but it kept happening. I didn’t know. I didn’t realize he was following me. I didn’t realize that he was taking everyone away from me so that, when all was said and done, he’d be the only one I could turn to.” 

Sebastian looked at the corpse on the ground, the sand and blood staining the white. Not so much a canvas now, not so much art. 

“Let’s keep moving.”

\-----------------------------

Stefano was certain that the only reason that he hadn’t fallen was because Sebastian was holding his hand. Sebastian, whose hand was so warm and soft, even with the callouses. Stefano hated it, didn’t want to admit it, but he was feeling horribly dependent on the man. He didn’t want to let go, not for anything. He had felt nothing positive for Paolo but with Sebastian, he felt so much and he wanted to stay with him, keep feeling. He had mentioned how much of a responsibility he was, but he hadn’t said why. 

There was a building, half torn apart, so that there was just the beginning of a room with a door to it. There was checkered flooring and a warm yellow light. Stefano could look at it but he knew he couldn’t touch it. It was one of those safe places that he wasn’t allowed in. He let go of Sebastian’s hand a few steps away from it and Sebastian kept his hold on Stefano’s hand until he absolutely had to let go. 

“I’ll be right back,” he promised and kissed Stefano’s scalp. Stefano wished that he could believe him. 

He sat down on a pile of the whiteness outside the door and waited. He wondered how much he should tell Sebastian, about what he had in store for him if he brought Stefano out of here. He wondered if he could even leave here. 

Sebastian hadn’t lied. He was back in just a few minutes and he’d brought a big cup of coffee with him that he placed in Stefano’s hands. He wrapped a tan trench coat around his shoulders as he drank and it was warm and comforting and smelled like Sebastian. Stefano took one hand away from the mug at a time to slip his arms through the sleeves. It was too large for him but he was sure it looked elegant on Sebastian. He didn’t want to take it off. 

“So, responsibilities?” Sebastian sat down beside him, taking a breather at the least opportune moment, looking up at the house on the top of the hill. “I’ve got a lot of those, some of which are way up there. I’m sure yours won’t be too much worse.”

“Heh,” Stefano laughed quietly, “You say that. Even before all of the nightmares in here, I wasn’t exactly the most stable person in the world. The war, what happened when I was injured, I had more nightmares than I had dreams.”

“I’ve been in STEM before,” Sebastian shrugged, “that and what I did, what I saw in the police force, I have a lot of nightmares too. And other things; PTSD comes in a lot of different forms.”

“I didn’t want to give it a name, but yes,” Stefano bit his lip. He didn’t want to go further. Sebastian needed to know all of this though. He had to be warned before he got too close. Stefano truly liked him being close. “I- I know I haven’t known you a long while and that half of the time I was trying to kill you or kidnap your daughter or do terrible things, but, I like you Sebastian. I don’t like people often. And, that’s a responsibility in it’s own regard, if you also like me. I wouldn’t be able to do a lot of things that you’d want to do.”

Sebastian’s face turned bright red, as did his neck and the little bit of chest that Stefano could see. Blush was a good color on him. His eyes were wide and not looking at him. 

“Ignore that,” Stefano laughed, feeling his heart sink a bit. He remembered that kiss as if it had happened to someone else, the one that had killed the soldier and brought him back. “I know you must love your wife. Just pretend I didn’t say anything.”

Sebastian looked like he wanted to say something. 

“The real responsibility,” he sighed. He looked elsewhere. He cleaned under his nails. He didn’t want to say it. He didn’t want to admit it. “I was addicted to Morphine, terribly, for a long time. I was able to kick it, just before being brought into Union. Paolo gave me a dose of it and there was nothing he did better than dosing me. I can’t promise that I’ll be strong enough to fight that if you bring me back to the real world.”

Sebastian wrapped an arm around his shoulders, drawing him close. Sebastian felt so warm against him. He felt almost warmer than the coffee. “You’ve been in here a long time. I think your body has flushed all of that out. But hey, I have my addictions too. I would just say I drink a lot but I think everyone knows the truth. So, if you come out of here with me, if you want to, we’ll have to keep an eye on each other, alright?” 

Stefano nodded. 

\--------------------------

One thing left to do. Two amazing people at the top of the hill. He could see the house now, even from such a distance. He knew exactly whose house it was. Stefano was still a bit wobbly and uncoordinated and he stumbled in the white stuff that acted like snow at times. He clung to Sebastian like a life preserver in a tsunami. He didn’t do anything flashy, he didn’t turn into blue smoke or sand and Sebastian had a cold feeling in his stomach that he knew why. He kept an arm wrapped around his waist, just in case he fell. 

And his mind was racing, in all the wrong directions. He should have said something, he should have confessed. He was sure that Stefano felt that he didn’t like him in the way that Stefano liked him, but now wasn’t the time to explain his way of loving people. It was difficult most of the time, trying to get people to understand him without thinking the wrong thing and right now he had to focus on getting Lily and Myra. He didn’t know what would happen outside of this place, if Stefano would feel the same way that he did now. Sebastian hoped that he would but there were so many variables. 

There were resonances on the way to the house. They paused at each and Stefano snarled whenever Theodore spoke, even if it was just a memory. Sebastian squeezed his hip a bit each time too. The man would be dangerous if he could stand up right now. 

Myra though. She had been betrayed, just as he had, just as the others had, who were in on the Plan. Theodore was a piece of scum and Sebastian was glad he wouldn’t be following them out of STEM. They started up the hill. Myra had just been doing what she had to do, to save Lily, to save the plan. She had become something else in order to do that. 

They were almost there. There was a rumbling to the ground. The world was in chunks around them, floating in the air. 

“Stefano,” Sebastian breathed. “I’m going to have to ask you to do something, can you do it?” 

Stefano was pale but he nodded. 

“I’m going to have to distract Myra. You heard what she said in those memories, she’s going to do whatever she has to to keep Lily safe. Can you get into the house and get Lily for me when I do that?” 

Stefano’s eye widened and he spoke air a few times before he looked down, shaking his head slightly. “I kidnapped Lily. You never even told me she was your daughter until now, I had to find that out from Theodore. And I kidnapped her again. No, I can’t do that. I can’t take Lily without you present. She’s got to think I’m a monster by now.”

Sebastian ran a hand down his cheek and he went silent. “Please? She’s a smart kid, she knew when you were and weren’t a threat to her before. I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

Stefano closed his eye and nodded. “This is a terrible idea.”

“I know.”

They kept walking. 

There was a fence and beyond that the house and Sebastian could smell smoke but it was distant and buried beneath the layers of white that surrounded them. He stayed silent, kept his attention ahead, but kept a hand on Stefano’s elbow. He was slowing them down. That was fine, Sebastian didn’t think he could do this alone. He would have taken Stefano if he was missing a leg at this point. 

Myra, or the thing that she had become, was standing in the driveway, staring up at the house, staring up at Lily’s room. Sebastian let go of Stefano’s arm, looking towards the door, directing him. Stefano nodded and slunk off, going towards the garage, hoping to stay out of Myra’s sights. 

“Myra? Is that you?” he asked and he wasn’t just asking as a distraction. He had to know. He couldn’t tell if this was Myra or that creature that she had become. There had to be a way to reach her still. 

She turned, flickering wildly. It was only when she was facing him that she was able to settle, her form becoming that of his loving wife, the woman he would die for if given half the chance. 

“Sebastian...”

He moved towards her, arms starting to spread. He wanted to hold her, suddenly and irrevocably, he had to have her in his arms, pressed against him. She looked so cold, white against white, and he wanted to bring life back into her bones. She took a step back and then another, her features wrinkling into fear. He stopped. He didn’t want to frighten her. 

He wanted them to be a family again. 

“Why are you fighting me, Myra?” he begged, wanting so desperately to take another step forward. Stefano was almost to the door now, having moved behind her. 

“You… don’t understand,” she took another step and started to turn, to look at the house, the house they’d always lived in, that they’d spent months looking for when Myra shouldn’t have been moving at all, the house that had burned down. “This is-”

The door was open and Stefano was in the doorway, but he’d stopped, turned, and was making eye contact with her. She flicked for just a moment before she was that creature, that other thing, her hand a long white blade. “No!” she bellowed “I won’t let anyone take her from me!”

“No, please, Myra!” Sebastian called out but there was no way he could get through to her. She was running towards the house, running after Stefano as he slammed the door. Sebastian was just standing there, useless. “We still have time! We can leave!”

In her anger hands rose from the ground, massive pillars of limbs. They slid against the walls, not to damage the house but to get to Stefano inside. He had to do something and he had to do it fast. 

“I am not going to leave Lily here!” he drew his gun. He had to do something. 

Myra turned, faced him. There was nothing of her here, not in this creature. She held the blade out to the side, as if to show it off to him, and walked slowly towards him, as if testing him. He didn’t want this. He didn’t want any of this. He knew that Myra wasn’t going to listen to him, wouldn’t come willingly. Not like this. 

He looked up towards Lily’s room. The pillars of white ooze were staying away from her window, at least. There was nothing he could do. He just had to hope that Stefano would come through. 

“Please.”

\------------------------

Up the stairs. He knew where Lily’s room was, even if the memory was like a ghost to him. He clung to the railing as he ran up the stairs. He felt like his leg was going to go out on him. His knuckles were white. He was going to bite through his lip. 

He made it to the second floor and the windows shattered beside him. He put up his arm, feeling himself get sprayed with glass. The glass wasn’t the worst of it, a long white tendril with fingers and hands sprouting from it reached in, reaching for him blindly. He dodged it, trying to get past, trying to get to Lily. He had to get Lily. 

One of the hands grabbed him though, from the back of Sebastian’s coat, and it dragged him back, throwing him back and against the wall on the other side. It was enough to make him grunt and make the room spin, but not enough to knock the wind out of him and definitely not enough to stop him. 

The tendril was still there, waving back and forth, hands grabbing at nothing, looking for a threat. He should have known Myra wouldn’t have been distracted so easily. Even if she didn’t mean to use it, she had the power of the Core in her possession. 

He watched the tendril, trying to track a pattern. When he expected an opening he went for it and this time, when it grabbed him, it launched him forward, into the direction he wanted to go. He slammed into a door, which opened as he went sprawling into what must have been an office. It was far too clean, no artwork on the walls, no nothing. He breathed, wiped himself down of glass and debris, and tried to get himself ready. 

From here there were no obstacles between him and Lily. He knew though, that he was terrifying to look at. His eye was a mess, worse than it had ever been, and he had no way to hide it. With the amount of scarring on him he knew he looked like a villain from some video game. And he looked like the man who had kidnapped her twice. 

He went over to her door, keeping an eye on that watching tendril. He’d have to figure out a way to get past that with Lily. He knocked, softly, but there was no answer. He opened the door. 

\------------------------------

“Don’t make me do this,” he’d begged. He truly had. He hadn’t wanted to. He hadn’t wanted to hurt her. He hadn’t wanted to fight her at all. He just wanted them to be safe, to be happy. Why couldn’t she see that? 

She’d rushed him, tried to spear him through like she had Theodore. He’d had no choice. He tried to correct his aim, go for a warning shot, but for once, his terrible aim did what he wanted at this last moment, when he pulled the trigger by instinct instead of moving it away. 

Her blade was so close to his face, like that time in the dark room, when Stefano had cut into his skin. That cut had never healed, no matter what he’d shoved into himself and neither would this. Myra had tried to kill him. But she’d stopped, because he’d tried to kill her. That mask over her face was cracking, falling apart and turning to ash. The bullet hole smoked as it fell away. And underneath, like a bunch of wriggling red worms, were tendrils of light. 

She’d fallen back, trying to right herself and he’d followed, hoping that this wasn’t real, that a blow like that wouldn’t kill her. She was shaking, spasming, her motions robotic and wrong as her skin broke away. And then she screamed and the world changed again. 

Now, he was standing in a pool of off white liquid and Myra was something else. She was masseive and covered in white veins. Her hair was loose and draping over her face, which looked as if it had been eaten away, her eyes bugging out. She was nude and horrible, her belly swollen and looking ready to burst. 

"My God, Myra," he mouthed. 

She roared and there was hardly anything human left. She lunged forward and he was barely able to get out of the way. Her voice didn't sound lik ehers and the words sounded like they were hard to form with her lipless mouth. 

"You hurt me! You'll hurt her too! I won't let you!"

"Goddamnit Myra! Stop this!" He knew it was pointless. He strafed to the left, looking for a way to escape, looking for a weakness. She had always been so strong. "Think about what you're doing!"

\---------------------------

Lily was curled up under the blankets, sound asleep. He hadn’t been able to look around her room before but now, as he walked towards her, he took a good look. There were toys, a doll that looked oddly like her father on the windowsill and drawings absolutely everywhere. For a moment he just stood there, next to a child’s eisle and took them all in. They weren’t good, they weren’t art, but just to see them, all on display, no care about judgment, no care about if they were good or not, touched him in its own way. He had seen her draw before, after the first time he’d kidnapped her. 

He knelt by the bed and gently, so gently, he touched her hair, brushing it away from her face. She shifted but did not wake. If he’d learned anything from his time here it was that he could be good with kids, if he had to, and he’d been able to get Lily to trust him at one point. 

“Lily?” he asked, her name drawn out and sing songy. “Liiiiiiiily?”

Her eyes opened slowly and then all at once as she saw him, pulling herself up and into a corner of the bed. 

He put his hands up trying to show her that there was no knife or other threat in them. “It’s me, Lily, It’s me. It’s not. It’s not the other Stefano.”

“You scared me,” she said, rubbing her eye. She didn’t leave her corner even as she relaxed a bit, “I thought. I thought something bad.”

“I’m sure you did, my darling, and I’m sure I deserved it,” he tried to smile. She didn’t return it. “You’re father is downstairs. He asked me to bring you down there. Can I do that?”

“My dad?” she must have had something in her eye, she couldn’t stop rubbing it. “You sure you’re not going to take me somewhere creepy?”

He put his hand on her hair, petting it softly. “I don’t know where your father is planning on taking us, so I can’t promise it won’t be creepy.”

“What about Mom?”

He pursed his lips. He didn’t know. He didn’t know if she could be saved, although he was apparently worthy of saving. He knew almost nothing about her. “I’m sure your father has a plan on what to do about her.”

“I’m really tired,” she admitted. 

Stefano opened his arm and let her crawl into them on her own. It felt strange, to have her arms around his neck, soft and tired and just clinging for balance more than anything else. He put an arm under her and the other around her back. He’d never held anyone like this before. He didn’t mind it. That might have been the most surprising part. “I know. You go to sleep now, alright?”

She relaxed immediately and he stood up, going to the door cautiously. He opened it and peered out but the tendril, thankfully, was gone. He was careful as he stepped through the broken glass on the floor, holding onto that railing once more. He was certain that if he fell now, Lily would never forgive him for it.


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this was so late. I'm doing inktober and jotober and my novel and fic is just getting shoved to teh side. We're almost there though! Just hold out a little longer!

He’d gone through a dozen bullets already, and Myra wasn’t stopping, she wasn’t settling down, she was shoving her arms down and trying to catch him in the massive hands, shoving pillars of limbs up from the ground to knock into him, and doing everything she could to stop him. He could see those spindly limbs elsewhere, closer to the house. He wasn’t even facing the full extent of her power. She was dealing with Stefano as well. 

“Please, Myra!” He called out, spilling his empty magazine into the lake of white beneath him, refilling his gun with the bullets he’d just made. “We can talk about this! What are you so afraid of?”

Her attention wasn’t fully on him either, even as he shot her, aiming for the strange growth in her stomach. He could see that something was moving in it. He didn’t want to know what was going to come out. 

“He’s taking her!” she shrieked and Sebastian followed her gaze, seeing Stefano stumble out of the house, Lily wrapped tightly in his arms. He was dodging the pillars as they burst out of the ground before him, reaching for him. 

“He’s fine! He’s a friend!” Sebastian tried to get through to her, tried to make her understand. If only he could make her understand, this whole thing would be so much easier. “He’s going to get Lily out of here, into the Real World. He’s going to help me save her! You can help us too!” 

“He’s going to hurt her again!” She raised both of her arms and a wall of waxy ooze shot up, right behind Stefano, knocking him forward with explosive force. It wasn’t hard with his bad leg. He wrapped his arms more firmly around Lily though, shoved his shoulder forward, and allowed himself to roll down the hill, get closer to them, shielding Lily with his body. 

“You’re the one putting her in danger,” Sebastian tried to stay calm, to get her to listen. He lowered his voice, screaming wasn’t helping anyone. “Please, look at what you’re doing.”

“He kidnapped her. Gave her to Theodore.”

“No,” Sebastian shook his head, watching Stefano pick himself up, check on Lily, and lock eyes on him. He was being so careful with her. “No, he didn’t have a choice. He didn’t want to do any of that.” 

“You’re lying!” Myra punched the ground sending a shock wave of white roll over Sebastian. He shook himself like a dog, trying to get it all off. “He came of his own volition. For his own goals. You saw what he made out of her power, out of her fear! He would do that again!”

Stefano was drawing near. He was hearing everything that they were saying. It was hard to tell if he was resigned by it, exhausted, or just hurting. He splashed into the murk and Sebastian wanted to shove him away, to get him away from there. Myra was right there and she was angry and she was going to kill them both. 

“The first time, I was ordered to take your daughter, and I did that, out of fear and control,” Stefano explained, trying to keep his voice and steps steady, “I did all of that to further my own goals, that is true. At the time I did not know what Lily was, in the beginning she was the sun, what gave Union life, and after a while, she became herself. By then, the corruption of this place was in me, had changed me, just as it had you. And I was lost by it, I was, addicted to her power, just, as I fear, you have become.”

“No!” Myra argued, “She is my daughter! I would never use her like that!” 

“Look at yourself! Look at what you’ve become! Would that be possible without the power of the Core?” he took a step towards her.   
Myra looked at herself, as he’d suggested. She was huge. She was monstrous. She didn’t have much of a face like this but even then the realization and grief was apparent on her face. 

“Look at her,” Stefano turned his grip on Lily, to show her, laying against his chest, eyebrows drawn as if in nightmare, sleeping through all of the yelling and the fighting and rolling down a hill. “She’s exhausted. She’s drained. You may not even realize that you are doing it, but you are siphoning her power. You are making yourself strong by making her weak. You must recognize this.”

“Please, Myra,” Sebastian tried again, putting his gun down and his other hand up, taking a few steps forward. “Everything that’s happened. No one blames you for what you’ve done, what you’ve become. You had to, I’m sure, just to keep her safe. Everyone wants her. But not as much as we do, you and me. So come on, let’s take her home, together.”

\------------------------

He wasn’t good at this. He wasn’t good at talking. He wasn’t good at understanding how others felt. He was good at telling the truth though and that was what he had done. It had helped too, it seemed. And Myra was confused, not knowing if she should attack or retreat, work with them. He didn’t know what to think of her. On one hand he was jealous, both of the love that she had received, was still receiving, from the exact person that he wished he could receive such love from, and of her strength. The Core could do so much, could offer such rewards for using it in just the right way. She was using it and she was a truly beautiful specimen of power. On the other hand, he held no anger towards her. It was as Sebastian said, she had had to become this to protect Lily. 

She shoved her fists into the earth, shooting the white liquid up into the air around her. It was steaming, it was hot, and it hadn’t been that way. It solidified as it hit the cooler parts, raining down on them. Sebastian grabbed the back of the trench coat and pulled it up, over Stefano’s head, over Lily. 

“Go!” he ordered, dodging a large glob. “Get Lily out of here!”

Stefano held the tails of the coat over them, like an umbrella, just so he could see Sebastian. “Where am I going?”

Sebastian pointed down the hill. Even though he’d never said it, he knew exactly what he wanted Stefano to do. He winced as so many burning droplets landed on his exposed forearms, on his face, turning into hard droplets on his skin. “Down there, back at my safe house!”

“The place with the coffee?” Stefano checked. He hadn’t seen a safe house. It didn’t have that Mobius symbol on it. 

Sebastian nodded. Stefano didn’t wait any longer. He rushed down the hill, waiting a few feet before releasing the trench coat and letting it flutter behind them. The world was cracking around them, but they were out of range of the droplets. The cracks weren’t too big, just making the ground uncertain, and his feet were already so uncertain. He grit his teeth, tightened his hold, and tried to keep his balance on the strange footing. 

He raced to the room, expecting Myra to be there any moment, or one of those pillars, at the very least. He didn’t look back. He couldn’t look back. If he did, he might Sebastian in trouble and then he’d have to go back. He couldn’t leave Sebastian needing him. 

They got to that door and Stefano pulled himself to a stop in front of it. The ground in front of it was uncertain, starting to fall in clumps. He shook Lily gently in his arms. 

He brushed some of her hair away from her face as she opened her eyes, looking up at him groggily. “It’s time to wake up, mia angela,” he urged, kneeling down to let her on her feet, just past that area of cracked ground. “I need you to go inside of this room, alright? I’m sorry but I cannot follow you there.”

“What about Mom?” she asked, rubbing her eyes. “What about Dad?”

“They’re on their way,” Stefano said. He was certain that they were too, though he didn’t know which one and he didn’t know how well he’d survive it. “I don’t know about your mother, but I know your father can get in there. He will meet you inside and then you will both be safe from this place.”

She didn’t like that. He could see that in the way that her eyebrows scrunched together and she looked over his marred face. “What about you? Will you be safe?”

He smiled then, but shook his head. “Your father has promised me as such, but I doubt it. As much as I would like to believe it, I don’t know how he’s going to pull it off, especially with the state of things as they are.” He looked back, seeing the cracks spreading, seeing the hills in the distance, the buildings, Paolo’s body if he could hope, falling into the abyss, breaking apart and floating in the void. 

And then something happened that he hadn’t expected. Lily threw her arms around his neck, squeezing him close. He gasped, feeling her strength around him, not the strength of the Core, but the very minimal strength of a ten year old girl, wrapping around him. He returned the embrace, hoping that he could exude some of the love, some of the compassion, some of the gratitude, that her touch contained, back to her. He’d never met anyone like Lily Castellanos. 

“Go now,” he whispered, as much as he didn’t want to let her go, “It won’t be long now.”

“You’re going to come back with us,” Lily argued, pulling away but keeping her hands on his shoulders, “You’ll be safe from this place too. I promise.”

“Alright,” he said and, he didn’t want to, but he did believe her. “Alright, I’ll see you on the other side.”

\---------------------

Stefano was right. Myra was siphoning off of Lily’s energy. When the waves of white were gone she was there, as herself, human and pure and wonderful, kneeling in the much, half buried under it. Sebastian’s heart swelled upon seeing her, his lips curling unintentionally. He ran to her, skidding to his knees beside her, putting a hand on her back as she shook, looking ready to vomit. 

“I… couldn’t control myself,” she gagged, trying to control herself, trying to control anything that was happening around her. “Is she?”

“She’s not far,” Sebastian explained, looking down the hill as she took his other hand, trying to pull herself up into a more comfortable position. “She’s safe, I promise.”

She released his hand and fell forward, wrapping her arms around him. He could feel her heaving, could feel her breath, and he could smell her, actually smell her perfume and the smell of their house, as she clung to him. “I’m so glad you’re alive. Please, you have to get Lily out of here.”

He already knew that but she was saying it with such finality, so much resignation, like she wasn’t going to come with them. It was just like how Stefano had said it. He embraced her in return and she felt so good pressed against him, just like she always had. He didn’t want to let go. 

“I’m getting us all out of here,” he started to lift her and she squirmed, making him still, worry that he was hurting her. “Come on!”

“Leave me,” she whimpered. “Just get Lily. Leave me.”

“No,” he shook his head, getting her to her feet, “I won’t leave you again.”

“You have to!”

It stopped him. He had a feeling. The Plan. It all hinged on Myra. He’d heard things, down below, in those resonances. There was a reason that she was here, beside protecting Lily. He looked at her and there was pain and compassion and strength in her conviction. She was so strong, stronger than he’d ever been or ever would be. 

“Mobius has to be stopped,” she explained, her voice wobbling, her eyes tracing over him, all of the blood and grime and everything else, as if she were memorizing him. He knew then, that that’s exactly what she was doing. 

“Screw Mobius, we lost too much time to them already,” Sebastian argued, “We can get away. We’ll go someplace where they’ll never find us.”

She raised a hand to bracket his face, he could feel her cold fingers against that wound in his cheek, the one that hadn’t healed, even with the syringes and coffee. “There’s nowhere to hide. They’re everywhere. You’ve seen what they’ve done, to Lily, to Stefano, they’re not going to stop. Lily will always be in danger… unless I destroy them.”

He couldn’t think. He couldn’t imagine what to say, how to get her to understand. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t lose her again. It had been so long. “Okay, fine.” the urgency was leaving his voice, even as he could hear Union splintering around them. “I’ll wait. Once Mobius is gone, we’ll-

“It doesn’t work that way, Sebastian! It can only be done from inside.” She pulled away from him. Her hands folded in her lap. She was resigned. She knew what she had to do, even if Sebastian hated it. “STEM is more than just this place. All of Mobius are connected to it via chips in their heads. Once I assume the power of the Core, I can transmit a signal just as Union collapses. A signal that can take Mobius down once and for all.”

He didn’t want to hear this. He didn’t want Myra to be a murderer, to wipe out thousands of people. None of them were innocent though, he had to remember that. STEM wasn’t just this place, they were doing this to other people too, they were ruining lives for their hive mind utopia. They all had to go. He just didn’t want Myra to be the one to do it. 

She was Mobius too. He didn’t want to ask, he already knew the answer, if she had a chip too. She wasn’t just going to destroy Mobius. 

“But… we’re finally together again.” He could hear the defeat in his own voice. 

“There’s no other choice. This is part of the plan. It always has been.” She looked back at him, her eyes filling with tears. She cried so rarely. He could feel them burning his eyes as well. “I’m sorry.”

“Myra...”

“Shh…” a finger was placed to his lips and a kiss to his cheeks. “Just… promise you’ll take care of the little one. Never let her forget how much her mother loved her.”

“Myra, there’s so much I want to say to you-

Those lips were on his now and they were both crying the tears sliding down their cheeks, mixing where they touched. He didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want her to stay in this crumbling place, all alone. He didn’t want her to have to carry this burden. 

“You don’t have to say anything. I’ve been watching you all this time. I know how you’ve suffered. What they did to you.” she pulled away. “What I did to you. You didn’t ask for any of this. And you’ve been into Hell twice for it. It’s time for you to leave now. To live the life that was taken from you.”

He opened his mouth but he had no words, no argument. There was so much in him. His whole heart was in his chest, beating and it was too much. He needed to give some of it away, had to pour it out to her. “I love you Myra,” wasn’t enough. It didn’t get close to all of the sensations that he had for her, all of the nights that he woke in a cold sweat, expecting her to be at his side, all those times when he reached to the passenger seat to take her hand is his, only to still be alone. 

“I love you too. Both of you. That’s why I’m doing this.” she looked up at the house. The cracks in the world, that were surrounding them, they weren’t affecting it at all. That’s where she had to be. “But there’s no more time. You have to go. Now.” The last part was almost a scream, a scream that he’d heard her use on people new to the force, when she had to get them out of harms way. That’s what she was doing here, getting him out of harms way. 

He turned, looking down to the safe house. It was a mess, getting back there. It wasn’t that far but it already looked like he’d missed his window to get there between all of the holes in the path. He didn’t care. He wanted to fall to his knees, he wanted to sob and break apart. But there was something down there, just in front of the safe house. 

Stefano was so small from here and Lily was even smaller. He was kneeling down in front of her, saying something. He had to get down there. For both of them. He just had to be strong for a little longer. 

\--------------------

Sebastian was running, alone, across the collapsing word of Union, if this place could even be called Union anymore. Stefano pulled himself up from his seat at the sight, seeing him dash and jump over the crumbling steps. He didn’t want to move, but he did, running out there to meet him, holding out his arms as Sebastian reached a larger gap, urging him to jump. Sebastian did so and Stefano pulled him across, holding onto his hand as he was dragged and dragging Sebastian to the safe house. 

“What about Myra?” Stefano asked, jumping across an opening and pulling Sebastian across as it spread. 

“She’s not coming,” Sebastian said, shakily, “My God, Stefano, she’s not coming.”

That was alright. She had a reason. There wasn’t time for Sebastian to tell him now. There was no time left. The world was falling apart. The safe house was still standing, but everything around it was breaking apart. 

“Where’s Lily?” he asked, panic rising as he looked around the white. 

“She’s inside!” Stefano promised and the ground beneath him fell out but that was alright because he was being pulled away from it, tight on Sebastian’s side. “She’s safe. I swear to you, she’s safe.”

“I believe you,” Sebastian looked at him with openness, with vulnerability and care. He hadn’t met anyone like Lily, but she had to get that from somewhere. He’d never met anyone like Sebastian Castellanos either. 

They got over to the door and the Sebastian was going through it though his eyes went wide as he looked back, as if the door was several feet closer than he’d thought, as if he’d thought that he had more time with Stefano before going through it. But he was through it and when Stefano reached it the door slammed shut in front of him, never to open again. 

Stefano pounded on it, but he didn’t put his strength into it. He’d expected this. He turned, leaning his back up against the door, and slid down to the quickly disappearing ground. Something in him wanted to cry, wanted to beg and sob and demand to be let through, to be allowed some happy ending. But most of him was numb. This was right. This was what he deserved, after all of the evils he had done. 

So he sat there and watched the world that he’d help build become nothing around him.


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know I used google translate, but what's worse is I typed in the wrong words and really bad grammar into google translate to make it overly obvious that Sebastian can't speak Italian.

He woke with a start in a cold bathtub, the white liquid having chilled days ago. 

“Take it easy Sebastian, you’re safe now,” a voice on his left, Kidman. He looked over at her. He could smell blood. He didn’t know if it was his or not. 

“Lily!” the first thing he could think of, as he dragged himself out of the tub, shivering, “Where’s Lily?” His legs were weak, impossible to hold himself up with. The moment he put his weight on them he was on the ground, rolling onto his side. He felt almost as weak as he was the first time he’d come out of STEM. This time, he wasn’t alone. 

“I need your help getting her out,” Kidman explained, pointing with her gloved hand. “Stand over there.”

Slowly, clumsily, he pulled himself to his feet. There was a large jar in the center of the room. He’d seen it before. He hadn’t thought about it before, hadn’t allowed himself to, but he didn’t even know what she was in there. She could have been a brain, just like Ruvik. 

“And Stefano?” he staggered over, keeping his hand out for balance. 

“What about him?” Kidman's voice wasn’t cold, just out of the loop. She didn’t have any context for this. 

“I need to get him out. I told him I’d get him out.”

Kidman shook her head but she was still watching him, standing at the console she’d used to get him out. “I can’t do that Sebastian. I was only able to get the two of you out because I knew your coordinates. He doesn’t have an extraction point.”

He shook his head. He couldn’t leave him. He’d made a promise and, it was more than that. He didn’t know what to do without Stefano, suddenly. He’d thought he’d had everything figured out but, just having someone there again, someone that he cared about and who cared for him, even if it wasn’t the same kind of care, had turned everything on its head. He noted the radio on Kidnman's belt and thought of something. 

“He’s got a radio. I gave it to him. I know the frequency. Would that help?”

Kidman's eyes flickered down to her belt, “Yeah. I need to know his exact location and have the frequency set, just like I did with you. Can you do that?” She unhooked it from her belt and tossed it to him. He caught it and fumbled and juggled before catching it correctly. 

“I’ll find him.” He adjusted the frequency, looking back at the jar with Lily’s name on it. They were such high priorities and he knew that he had to get to Lily, had to have her in her arms, but she was, for the moment, safe. Stefano could fall into the nothingness at any moment. 

“Sebastian?” came the voice on the other side, “What are you... How is this possible?”

“I don’t know and I don’t have time to explain. Where are you?”

“I’m exactly where you left me. Why?” 

“I need you to get to the door of the safe room. I know you can’t get through it but I need you to press yourself against it, try to be where the door is.”

There was a pause and then he could hear Stefano grunt, the crackling of the world shifting under him. They didn’t have time. “I’m there!” Static was starting to creep over the frequency, they didn’t have long. 

“Now!” Sebastian turned to Kidman, “He’s at the extraction point, just a few feet away, you have a model of it, right?”

“More like I’ve got some points in code,” Kidnman shrugged. “It’s an exact science, just not one I’m familiar with.” She started to work all the same, typing away at the same computer that Sebastian had been standing at. 

He made it to Lily’s case and put his hand on it, steadying himself. Kidman's brow was furrowed. She kept typing, this was taking too long. 

The radio buzzed, the static almost drowning Stefano out. “Don’t know if you realized this but I think we saw different things. I think, maybe, I’m at a different door than you think. No worries. It doesn’t matter. I’m just glad I got to share a moment with you, in all this. I hope I, we, made a difference.”

“Kidman!” Sebastian barked, remembering how Stefano hadn’t even been able to cross onto the tiled floor, into Sebastian’s office alone, when he’d hurried to the door. “Go out by eight feet! I think I know what’s wrong!”

“What direction?” 

“South!”

“You did make a difference, Stefano,” Sebastian promised the radio, wishing that he could be there, that he could help Stefano through this. He had to see him. He had to make sure he was alright. He was going to get out of there, “Shit, I wouldn’t have been able to do it without you. I would never have been able to find Lily at all, not to mention rescue her, without you.”

The next part was unintelligible, due to the static, but the words were all wrong. He doubted he’d be able to understand him anyway. “M--piace. Mi Dis--Per qu—che ti ho f—o, per—att--a Lily. Pen—so di arar—i, Seb---tian, e no—qualcosa—dov--re. Mi dispi—dio.”

The radio went silent. 

Sebastian looked over at Kidman. She hit a few more buttons, with finality. Then she nodded to herself and looked over at him. “That’s it. I think we got him. There’s no way to know for certain until we find his body, if he even has one anymore.”

That didn’t fill him with hope. That didn’t ease the tension that he felt. 

His attention went back to Lily, in her case. “How do I get this open?”

\------------------------

EB-089. There had only been a couple tubs where Sebastian had been, but where Stefano was there were a hundred to a room. The computer had found him and had showed his vitals as strong, that everything was working just fine. That meant he was still hooked up to it though, and that he hadn’t woken up to panic at the new surroundings. He thought that might be for the best, to wake up only when there was a friendly face to help him out. 

Lily was asleep in his arms, her head buried in his neck. She was a pleasant weight in his arms. He hadn’t held her for so long. He wanted to press his nose into her hair and breathe her in, to make sure she was really there. She didn’t smell like herself though, she smelled like chemicals and STEM. It was a good thing that she was asleep though, as there were corpses everywhere, though they hadn’t started to smell like anything more than blood. 

He’d seen so much blood. He’d been bathed in it, covered in his own and in other’s, had killed so many people. Here though, it wasn’t in his head. It wasn’t in anyone’s head. It was all real. 

There weren’t many corpses in the room full of tubs though. Most of the dead had been removed from their tubs, only the few that had died when Union fell apart at Myra’s whims were still there, mouths open and eyes wide, as if they’d woken up, just at the end. 

The numbers made it easy to find him, written in red on the floor, and he followed Kidman through the rows, to the one screen that didn’t show a flat line. He breathed in, harsh, when he saw Stefano, lying there, still hooked up, not as tightly as Lily had been but still terribly connected. 

Mobius didn’t care about the body, only the mind. Stefano had been in there for two years and Sebastian was afraid to touch him, afraid that he would break that thin skin, stretched over what little muscle remained. He was thin, thinner than he had been, and, while everyone else was in hospital gowns, Stefano had somehow gotten clearance to wear lounge pants, which were now so large on him that they threatened to go down the drain when Kidman drained the liquid. 

His hair was long and matted and a mess, going down to his chest, but still there was a chunk, longer than the rest, that lay over the damaged part of his face. His skin wasn’t as blemished as it had been in Union though and Sebastian wondered if he was even missing an eye out here, but he didn’t part that hair to see. It wasn’t his place. The scars that had been so prominent over Stefano’s body, from his neck down to his leg, were slight blemishes, little flecks and lines of damage instead of a full textural change. He had all of his fingers as well, though one of them was heavily scarred and bent differently than the rest. 

Sebastian jostled Lily in his arms, watching Kidman pull him away from the machinery. He wanted to do something, to hold him, to be the one to get him out of there. 

Stefano wasn’t moving. 

\------------------------

Lily woke up in the car and made a little squeak of surprise when she looked over and saw Stefano, belted in next to her. Sebastian wrapped an arm around her and pressed a kiss to her scalp. Kidman was in the driver’s seat and the three of them were in the back. After all this time, with all of this worry, Sebastian couldn’t stand the idea of being so far away from them, even if it was just a few inches. 

“What’s wrong?” Lily asked, pressing her back to Sebastian’s chest. “Is he dead?”

Sebastian’s lips were still against her forehead when he shook his head, wrapping an arm around her chest and holding her a bit closer. 

“He’s not waking up,” Sebastian didn’t want to lie to her, “and we don’t know how to take care of him right now. We’re taking him to a hospital.”

Lily wriggled out of Sebastian’s hold to get over to Stefano, getting as close to kneeling as she could while still wearing her seat belt. Sebastian wanted to stop her, to tell her it was dangerous, but he was right there, he would catch her. Nothing was going to happen. She reached up to Stefano’s face, ran a hand along his jaw and used her other hand to pry his eye open, just for a moment. 

“Stop that, it’s not helping,” Sebastian chuckled. 

She sat back down. She didn’t share his enthusiasm. She looked afraid and that was something Sebastian didn’t want to see anymore. “I promised him, he’d make it out. Is he actually out?”

Sebastian’s mouth fell open but he didn’t have an answer. 

“We’re not sure,” Kidman said, saving Sebastian from more awkwardness, “We won’t know until he wakes up. We’re going to need help for that.”

It wasn’t the answer that Lily wanted, but it wasn’t the answer that Sebastian wanted either. He kept his arm wrapped around her and an eye on Stefano, to make sure he was still breathing while they drove. Lily kept a hand out on his knee, where it shook under the blanket that they’d wrapped him in, that Kidman had found in the trunk of their stolen vehicle. 

\---------------------------

Kidman did all the talking. She’d found Lily and Sebastian dragging themselves up a bank off the side of the road and they’d directed her to the river, where the three of them had fallen in and they’d pulled Stefano out and left him on the bank while they looked for help. It would have taken too long to wait for an ambulance. It had a lot of holes and there was no way they’d believe it, but it was enough. They were separated, as much as Sebastian and Lily protested, and all taken to different rooms. 

Sebastian had a quick check up, just testing his vitals and his joints. He was fine. He kept telling them that. He had to be with his daughter. They couldn’t keep him from her. They told him they’d have to give him something if he didn’t calm down. There was a little nerve damage from being in the cold liquid for too long but it would heal within a few days and he’d be able to walk around normally if he exercised regularly. They didn’t keep him from Lily for long. 

Lily was in worse shape. She would need a few months of physical therapy, which they could do at home but with a lot of doctors visits. Sebastian didn’t know how possible that would be, since he knew that Mobius had eyes everywhere and they would be searching for them, if there was any Mobius left. He could already feel paranoia settling into his bones. Lily was malnourished, slightly, but she’d be alright with a better diet and some vitamins. She was a kid, she was resilient, they’d already gotten her temperature back up. 

She’d smiled at him and asked about Stefano. He hadn’t checked on him yet. He didn’t really want to. He didn’t want to know if there was nothing they could do, if they had failed, if he was just going to be a vegetable for the rest of his life. He kissed her forehead, ran a hand up her arm, and said he was going to check on Stefano next. 

He didn’t even get to Stefano’s room before Kidman intercepted him. She had a backpack, one that he recognized, slung over her shoulder. She pulled it off and handed it to him, far softer than he was used to from her. 

“I went to your apartment, grabbed some things you might need, some fresh clothes and the like. I think I know you well enough to know you’re not planning on leaving the hospital soon.”

He shook his head, “I want to stay, I want to look after them both and make sure they’re healthy. But what about Mobius?”

“Mobius is dead, you don’t need to worry about that.”

“How can you be so sure?” He looked through what she’d grabbed. All of the clothes were the softest that he owned, no leather, no rough denim. It was all worn and comfortable, good for a caretaker. His phone was in there, as were his keys and the other miscellaneous items that had been pulled from his pockets before he went into STEM. “You said this was bigger than all of us, that there were so many.”

“Myra cleaned house very well, the only people who could have survived that were people without chips, like those that were trapped in STEM. You can relax, as much as that’s possible, and take care of things for now.”

“What about you?” 

She shrugged, “I’ll be in touch. I probably won’t come by to visit all that much, but I’ll be around. I’m going to go through the facilities, see what I can find, see if there are any survivors, other instances of STEM. See if I can find-” she shook her head, “if I can find some way to make this all public, so it doesn’t happen again.”

\-----------------------

“He’s got minimal mental activity,” the doctor explained, looking through his clipboard. He was wearing a tie and a dress shirt and he didn’t look anything like Paolo but Sebastian wanted him out of the room anyway. He didn’t know how Stefano would respond when he woke up. “He’s got enough to regulate his breathing and his heart rate, but that’s it. If we knew what actually happened, we might be able to do something more, but as it stands we can’t even run any tests.”

“What do you mean, what actually happened?” Sebastian asked, standing beside the bed. There was more color to Stefano’s cheeks, but he still looked terrible. He could see his ribs through the hospital gown. Stefano shouldn’t have been in a hospital gown. He knew that much. 

“We know you didn’t fall in a river, none of you did. None of your injuries matched such an incident, aside from the lowered core temperature. Can you tell me what made him go comatose?”

Sebastian shook his head, “You wouldn’t believe me even if I told you.” 

The doctor sat down, leaning the clipboard on his knee. “Try me.”

Sebastian sighed and wished that Kidman was there because she was a much better liar than he was and she was more knowledgeable on what had happened, especially on the outside. He told him what he knew though and the doctor took notes and he was certain that they were going to send him to a different part of the hospital, one specifically designed for the mentally ill. 

“Well, I can understand why you didn’t want to tell me,” the doctor sighed at the end, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “It gives me some ideas for some tests though, see what chemicals might be in his system and negate those. If he’s in, uh, as you say, dream state, he may wake up on his own. Is there anything else you can tell me?” 

Sebastian nodded, “Yeah, he’s got a problem with doctors and hospitals, most likely. If we could get him into some actual clothes you might not get attacked when he wakes up. I’d lose the lab coat too, if I were you.”

The doctor nodded to that, surprisingly. “Alright, we’ll see what we can do about that. We’ll run some tests in the morning, and get you the results since he doesn’t seem to have any other next of kin.”

“Thanks.” Sebastian gave him a weak smile. Stefano had gone to Mobius because there was no one else for him on the outside. He’d thought that was a bit of an exaggeration. Someone had to care for him, even if they were in Italy or he didn’t realize they did. Now though, it seemed that he really was alone. 

\----------------------

He spent a lot of time with Lily and he smiled the entire time. There was a playground nearby and they went every day, at least for a little while. She was still getting check ups in the evening and, when Sebastian wanted to spend time with Stefano, she was often on his knee, looking over at whatever app that Sebastian had downloaded or reading. She read out loud, a lot, and Sebastian was glad for that because he knew that talking to people, even if they couldn’t respond, could sometimes help. 

The tests had come back with a lot of chemical imbalances, a lot of malnutrition, a lot of muscle and joint problems, and a continued lack of mental processes. Sebastian didn’t know what to do. He didn’t want to stop trying. He didn’t want to leave him. 

Whenever he was alone, when Lily was with the doctor’s and Stefano was being poked and prodded while the doctor’s tried to find some way to wake him up, he would walk. He would go back to the park, find a quiet place there, and think of Myra. He thought of what she had done, thought of the future she had given them, and he mourned. There would be no funeral, no rites, no grave. He wouldn’t be able to mourn like most people. He wouldn’t be able to do anything. He would just have to pretend that she was never found. 

\----------------------

“Ciao. Uh, mi chimo Sebastian. Come sti eggi?”

There was no response. 

\----------------------

A week and there was nothing. There was an improvement, sure, as he lived off an IV and they stretched his ligaments, attaching his feet to a pedaling system and had Sebastian wind it, make his legs move. He was getting better, physically, but he wasn’t gaining anything mentally. 

He’d been in there for two years. Even if he’d made it to the extraction point, even if he was saved, that didn’t mean he was in there at all. Still, Lily read to him, the same way that she used to read to Sebastian and Myra when it was time for her to go to bed, all that time ago. And Sebastian spent as much time as he could in there. There was now always a water bottle in there, waiting for him, because the nurses must have noticed that he would just go in there and cry sometimes, no longer mourning alone. A lot of the tears were for Stefano too. 

They’d asked him if they should cut Stefano’s hair. He’d said no. He wasn’t sure. He didn’t know if that would be too much. They said that there might be something they could do about the shrapnel, that they’d come a long way since Stefano had lost the eye. He’d said no. It wasn’t up to him. He didn’t want them to do anything to Stefano that he wasn’t aware of. Anything that wasn’t necessary. 

\---------------------

“Uh, ciao. Hmm. Ti volgio none addormentato? Uh. Puo tornare presto? Ciamommy. My manchi.”

\---------------------

The week turned into two and that turned into three. He wanted to do something. He wanted to move. He wanted to scream. He wanted to drink and get drunk and forget everything. Lily no longer had to come by the hospital, she was spending more and more time with Kidman in the hours that she was nearby and Kidman said that Lily was helping with the research but Sebastian just pretended that that meant she was playing on the computer. He didn’t want Lily working on anything to do with Mobius. Kidman had found the locations of some of the other centers, but she hadn’t gone to them yet. She seemed to be holding back, waiting for something. Sebastian was waiting for something too. 

He was talking, overly mindedly, his fingers tracing the veins in the back of Stefano’s hands. He had them almost memorized. 

“Ho pensato che force volevi un fiore? None so cosa ti place Rose? Uh, questo pasto brutto, annioato, blanco. None ti piacerebbe. Dov rebbe essere Colorado.”

A shifting of eyelashes. Sebastian was tired. He needed to sleep. He didn’t see any movement. There was no movement to see. 

“Prendo la tua carta. Guarisci presto. None puoi ascoltarlo peru. Stai dormendo. Vorrei che tu fossi sveglio. Per favore sveglia.”

Tension to the fingers. He’d been holding them too long, making the blood pool or something. Stefano wasn’t responding. Stefano couldn’t respond. 

Sebatian looked at his phone. He’d heard that the owl would get mad if he skipped a day, but he hadn’t seen it. He’d used the app every day and he felt his Italian was getting better, although he knew he was speaking far too slowly and he couldn’t get the grammar right. He’d heard about people waking up after accidents and not remembering how to speak English. 

Stefano wasn’t going to wake up though. He had to get that through his head. There was no point in him staying here. There was no point in his trying. 

He stood up. He had a life to live. He had Lily back. He’d failed Stefano. He’d lost Myra. He had to live his life for Lily now and he had to do it basically alone. He wasn’t going to ask Kidman to help be a parent for Lily. He wouldn’t ask that of Stefano either. He just wanted some help now. 

His shoulders shook. He wanted to fall to the ground and sob. He wanted to choke on his heart. He wanted to get Stefano and Myra out of it. He wanted to get over them. He wanted to leave them behind. They weren’t doing anything. They were, for all intents and purposes, dead. 

He made his way to the door. He’d find Dr. Chasimar, talk to him about the life support issue. The doctor had asked him about it a few days ago but now Sebastian knew his answer. There was no point in torturing them both like this. 

He stopped in the doorway, taking a look back. He told himself it was the last time he’d do so. That was before he saw how wet Stefano’s face had gotten though, from his own tears, not Sebastian’s. 

“Merde.”

\-----------------------

More tests, more chemicals. Sebastian and Lily both spent more and more time at the hospital, rivaled only by the first few days. They were in the way, they knew that, and they were often shoved out of the room by the nurses so they could work. Nothing was forcing Stefano awake and, eventually, things went back to normal. They’d have to wait and see. Stefano would have to come back to himself on his own. 

Lily beat Sebastian to his bedside the moment they were allowed back in, taking Stefano’s hands in her own making him look like a corpse against her liveliness. 

“You gotta wake up, Stefano! You’re doing really well, but it’s time to wake up now, okay?” she leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “You can’t be tired anymore, it’s against the law. That’s what dad always told me when I slept in too much. And you’ve been sleeping for so long.”

Sebastian smiled, putting a hand on her shoulder, “Be careful, mia angela, you don’t want to hurt him.”

She glared up at him, her eyes fierce. “You don’t get to call me that, Dad.”

He was slightly taken aback, blinking awkwardly. “Oh, okay.” He looked back down at Stefano, taking his usual spot at his side. Lily was right though, it was time. They had lives to get to and Sebastian was patient and he wanted Stefano better but he wanted Stefano back in his life. 

“To svegli presto? Sto imparando a cucinare per piu di uno e dovresti provarlo. Non male. Mi manchi, lo sai? Fa male che tu non senta.”

“Dad, that’s awful,” Lily groaned, looking up from her book. It was about twice the size of the kind of book she read out loud. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard any Italian worse than that.”

“Me neither,” Stefano joined her sentiment.

\--------------------

Dr. Chasmar had come in immediately, stripping off his lab coat as he pushed into the room with a wide smile. He took Stefano’s hand in his own, introduced himself as he shook it. After that were more tests, more smiles, and a lot of discussion about Stefano’s condition. It would take a lot of work, he would need physical therapy for years, but, after a few days of tests and making sure he was alright, Stefano would be able to go home. 

He held Sebastian’s hand the entire time that the doctor was speaking, but he didn’t seem frightened at all, not by what was going on or about his future. It was only when Kidman had shown up and taken Lily out of the room to give Stefano and Sebastian some space did the enthusiasm slid from Stefano’s face. 

“I told you I would be a big responsibility.” he laughed, the sound hollow. 

“I don’t care,” Sebastian promised, his free hand on Stefano’s shoulder. He almost couldn’t stop touching him. “You’re coming home with us in a few days. You’re going to be okay.”

“Well, I don’t know about that,” Stefano squeezed his hand lightly, “I am going to be an absolute pain to you if you continue in your plebeian attempt to speak in Italian.”

“You’re going to have to help me out there because io non lo fa volere fine.”

Stefano laughed at that and the sound was like a flower blooming in Sebastian’s chest. He put his hand on Sebastian’s face and pushed him away but he was too weak to actually do anything. His hand slid down and those spindly fingers wrapped around Sebastian’s collar. “I must have made you wait for so long.”

Sebastian took his fingers and raised them to his cheek, kissing the back of his hand, “That you did, but I’m glad I waited.”


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS IT This is the last chapter. Hoooooooooooooooooly snap!   
> Oh and the art gallery? I know it seems like a weird exhibit that would never actually happen, but it's based off of an exhibit my sister was a part of when she was in college.

He needed help, getting to the car, getting out of it, getting into the house, and by the time he was inside he was exhausted, his legs shaking, sweat pooling in the sweatshirt that Sebastian had lent him. He groaned when he saw it, leaning whatever pathetic excuse of weight he had on Sebastian’s shoulder, glaring at the stairs up to the second level of the house. Sebastian was there though, half carrying him, and he was led to a couch that smelled like whiskey and cigarettes.

“Just a little bit, just until I get a job and my own place, then I’ll be out of your way,” Stefano promised, his hands shaking on Sebastian’s strong arms, feeling weak enough to rattle apart. 

Sebastian gave him a weak smile and ran his hand through his hair the best he could. “If that’s what you want.”

Stefano leaned back on the couch, resting, watching. Lily was excited that he was there and she ran upstairs to her room before coming back in a few minutes, a pair of sketchbooks and a box of crayons in her arms. There was a coffee table next to the couch and she dumped it all onto it before he even had a chance to get settled. 

She beamed up at him as she opened up her book, hopping up onto the couch next to him. “I thought you might be sad and that you might miss her, so I drew her for you.”

“Hmm?” Stefano didn’t want to see, didn’t know what she was talking about. He just wanted to close his eyes and rest. He knew he wouldn’t be able to, that he had too much to do still, primarily exercise, but the amount of physical therapy he was doing every day made his bones hurt. It was necessary. He just didn’t like it. 

She flipped to the most recent drawing and held it in her lap, letting him see it. He was painfully aware that she had specifically sat on his good side, so he wouldn’t have to work at seeing it. The drawing was of a three legged creature in pinks, with a box for a head. He smiled, seeing Obscura done in a shaky hand, a new hand that didn’t quite have the strength to hold the crayons like they once had. 

“She’s beautiful,” he murmured. The drawing itself wasn’t great, but it brought tears to his eye all the same. He hadn’t expected to miss her. He didn’t think Lily knew what had happened to her, but he did miss her, dreadfully. “Is she out in a field?”

She was surrounded by lines of green and there were some flowers and a butterfly nearby. Lily nodded. “There weren’t many places like this for her to go to so I thought she would like it.”

“I’m sure she would,” Stefano admitted. 

Lily picked up the other sketchbook and handed it to him. It was a cheap thing, purchased in bulk. She then took the crayons and placed them beside their legs. “I asked Dad to get you a sketchbook too. So we could draw together!” 

She flipped to a new page. Stefano’s mouth was dry. He had only ever been decent at technical drawings, planning out compositions and lighting and doing thumbnails of pieces he wanted to do. He’d never been much of a sketcher or illustrator. He took a red crayon though and thought, staring at the page. He didn’t know what to draw. Lily had already started, using a pale gray to draw a landscape, a gray house on a gray hill, with a monster protecting it all. Stefano swallowed. 

His hands were shaking. 

\------------------------

“It’s nothing fancy, but it’s dinner,” Sebastian apologized, sitting at the table. The wood seemed to stretch a mile. 

It was a paella. Stefano hadn’t had something like that in years. Something told him that Sebastian wasn’t a great cook, but when he stretched forward, scooping some of the food out and ladling it onto Stefano’s plate, he found himself salivating. The smell was fantastic and there was steam coming off of it and it was real food. 

“Thank you,” he murmured. He still found his voice much quieter than he preferred, than he was used to. He could see some vegetables hidden in there, among the different meats. 

Lily made a face as she reached for the salt. “Not too much, baby,” Sebastian chuckled, “Too much salt is bad for you.” Lily rolled her eyes but didn’t salt it too much. 

Stefano took a bite and immediately he felt like it was too much, his jaw cramping on one side. There was flavor. There was actual heat in his mouth. It was like creating art for the first time, when the blood spurts from a squeezed muscle, when it makes a bouquet in the air, as the tomato squirted it’s fluid over his tongue. 

“You okay?” Sebastian reached out, put his hand on Stefano’s, reminding him where he was. “I didn’t do too bad of a job did I?” 

Stefano stared at him. He swallowed and his mouth dropped open. “Sebastian. I haven’t eaten anything like this in over two years. The only solid food I’ve had was at the hospital. I’m fairly certain that this is the best meal I’ve ever had.”

Sebastian’s eyebrows raised. Lily stared at him as if he’d blasphemed. Stefano was on the spot and he normally liked that but now he felt like he was being stared at for all the wrong reasons. It all ended when Sebastian broke into a huge grin and elbowed Lily in the shoulder. “See? It’s not that bad.”

Lily stuck out her tongue. 

Stefano didn’t know when the last time he’d eaten a meal at a table, with other people. He took another forkful and tried to ignore the shaking of his hands. 

\-----------------------

He had gotten himself to the bathroom, all on his own, even though he’d had to lean heavily on the wall all the while. It was late at night, he didn’t want to call Sebastian downstairs for help, not with this. He had a walkie-talkie, Sebastian kept his on his hip at all times, and Stefano could call him whenever he had to. That didn’t mean he wanted to though. 

It had taken him days to get to this point. His legs were already sore from his pedaling machine. He was tired of having Sebastian hover over him, of having Lily check on him, as if he was an invalid. He knew that he was, but he didn’t want to feel like one. He liked having Sebastian touch him, back in Union it had become so casual, so easy. Here though, it was all medicinal. He knew why too. He knew that all of the feelings that they had shared in there was just in his head, that his feelings for Sebastian could never be returned. It was one of the reasons he wanted out of this house. 

Sebastian thought that he didn’t see it. He had though, when he looked out of the window as if he was waiting for her to come home, when he twisted his wedding ring and sighed, when he stood in the kitchen and washed a dish for far too long, tears in his eyes. Stefano saw it all. He wasn’t Myra. He wasn’t about to step forward and try to take her place when she had only just died. Sebastian deserved time to heal, to mourn, and when he was done, he deserved someone better. 

He did his business and washed his hands, trying not to think about Sebastian, trying not to think about Myra. 

He looked in the mirror. He had seen himself, in passing, but it was usually with Sebastian’s help, and he hadn’t had time to really see. His hair was a mess of knots and tangles and it puffed up around him like the fur of a dead animal. His skin was pale and flaky, too dry. His face was gaunt and the clothing that he’d borrowed from Sebastian made him look skeletal. He’d always been thin but this was too thin. When he breathed too hard he could see his ribs make lines in the old shirt. 

He leaned closer to the mirror. He pulled his hair away from his face and took a good long look. The scars weren’t tendrils, creeping over his face. The veins weren’t bulging things that threatened to fill with blood as he fell over the edge and lost himself. There was no camera lens in his eye, small and protected by malleable flesh, wet and pulsing around it. It was just an eye. 

It was grayer than the other and the whites were dulled and muted. The veins in it were all dead and they didn’t put blood where it needed to go. It was still an eye though and he could close his scarred eyelid over it, hide it from the world, but it was still a physical thing. He could see in it, the long scar that cracked his iris, a black line where the shrapnel still sat in there. They hadn’t been able to get rid of it all. 

The doctors said that they could remove it, that they’d gotten better at that, but they still wouldn’t be able to make him see again. He decided to keep it as it was. He’d had enough of hospitals and, more so, people messing with his eye. 

He was pulled out of his thoughts, back into himself, when he heard a muttering from upstairs. He’d become somewhat accustomed to the sound of Lily’s nightmares and he’d learned that there was nothing that he could do about them. He lived downstairs and she was at the top of them. He didn’t even have a way of talking to her at night, and he didn’t need to. Sebastian was up fast enough and would make his way to Lily’s side without hesitation. 

He didn’t have nightmares, for which he was grateful. He was sure that he would but for now he was just too tired for them. When he slept he didn’t think of anything, didn’t have any dreams. He was woken by the noise of the others and by his own muscle spasms as they healed from the rigorous activity of walking. 

That wasn’t Lily though. He made his way back to the couch, falling onto it with exhaustion, still hearing Sebastian’s pained sounds. He couldn’t tell if he was speaking or muttering or crying, but there was definitely something going on. He pulled the walkie-talkie off of the coffee table, next to the crayons that Lily seemed to always want to use with him. 

“Sebastian?” he asked, pushing on the button. He was sure Sebastian had gotten the ones with the easiest buttons for his weak and fumbling hands, but he was still proud of himself for first locating and then being able to hold down the button. “Sebastian, are you alright?” 

Sebastian was asleep. He wasn’t answering. Stefano thought for a moment. This was all a terrible invasion of privacy, he was sure. 

“Sebastian, I need you to listen to me, alright? You are not there anymore. We are in the real world. Everything is alright. Nothing is going to hurt you out here.” He lay down. The strength had returned to his voice. He could hear Sebastian still but it sounded a little bit better. He hoped that he was helping. “If it were up to me, nothing would hurt you again at all, but we both know that isn’t possible. You have things in your head, as does Lily, and I know that I am a cause for a great deal of the trauma that afflicts you. I wish that I could say that I was sorry, I wish that I could apologize. Unfortunately, I believe we both know that that is not in my nature. As terrible as it was, everything that I did, I am glad that I did it. I would not have met you if I had not. I would still be in STEM, if I had not. I would still be under Paolo’s control if I had not.”

He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what Sebastian needed. He was just talking. He was hoping that Sebastian wasn’t listening to the words, just his voice. “Sometimes, Sebastian, I wish things were different. I wish that I had never been in STEM. I wish that I had never heard of the Core. I wish that I was able to be the man that you needed. I cannot change these things. I do not regret these actions. I just wonder if it would have been possible to get to the outcome in a different manner. I wish that things with you had gone differently, most of all. You do not deserve the hand you hold. I want to be able to help you with it, find some sort of joy in the pain you have, but I don’t think I can. It is not my place. I don’t think you want me in that place.”

He paused, listening. Sometimes he could hear Sebastian breathing, if it was labored. At the moment he could hear nothing. He wondered if he’d woken Sebastian up and he’d listened to Stefano’s sordid confession. There was nothing that Stefano could do with that unless Sebastian confronted him about it. For now though, Sebastian was quiet, and that was enough. He put the walkie-talkie back in its place and let himself fall asleep. 

\-----------------------------

Sebastian took him to get his hair cut. He said he could go alone, but Sebastian said that he knew a place and that he didn’t want Stefano driving yet. Sebastian had two cars. Stefano was certain not to ask about one of them, because he was sure it was Myra’s. 

He had tried and failed to brush his hair a number of times and Lily had even tried to run a comb through it with some detangling oil, but nothing had worked. He’d actually broken a tooth off of the comb. He was sure that the people at the salon were going to hate him. 

Sebastian had squeezed his hand though and had helped him out of the car and to the front of the building. It was Stefano’s first time outside of lounge pants in years and he reveled in the feeling of starched clean slacks on his legs. He was wearing a dress shirt as well and that alone mad him feel stronger, more himself, even if they didn’t exactly fit. He’d always had the problem of being too long and too thin and having such broad shoulders, everything had to be tailored. For now he could live with his clothing being just a bit too large. 

There were gasps when they walked in and Sebastian lost hold of his hand when a young man and an older woman took hold of him, ignoring such etiquette of appointments, and led him to a chair. They murmured constantly as they got to work, scolding him and questioning him about what had happened to his hair. 

They didn’t even bother washing or brushing it, just starting with cutting some of it. The blades near his face were off putting but they were scissors, not knives, and the panic that he felt was more for what they would see than what he could. 

He tried to tell them what cut he wanted but they tutted and said that they’d need to see what was salvageable first. 

Sebastian wasn’t sitting in one of the waiting chairs, reading a magazine. He was standing at the next chair over, hovering, ready to get involved if he needed to. Stefano gave a weak smile to the mirror for him. He didn’t need Sebastian’s help in this, he didn’t want Sebastian to see what the hair was hiding. He knew that Sebastian had seen his eye, he’d been bald at one point in Union, but that was all in the mind, he’d been altered by the way he imagined himself. He didn’t know how Sebastian would respond to the truth of it. 

When they’d finally cut the worst of the knots out they turned him around and laid the chair back, tipping it backwards so that he was lying on his back, unable to move, wire ties tight on his wrists as their hands were close to his face. He wanted to struggled as they ran the water, wanted to pull away, because there was going to be a thumb in his eye in a moment and he closed it tight as they exposed that side of his face, his breathing shallow and tight. 

And there was a hand on his, soothing. He opened one eye, saw Sebastian there, joining the others. They hadn’t noticed, were too busy trying to come up with some plan on how to rescue what hair he still had. Sebastian’s fingers were tracing the scars on Stefano’s wrists, where he’d pulled and tugged against Paolo’s bonds both in reality and the facsimile of it. He gave Stefano a weak smile and Stefano was back, somewhat, though being on his back was driving his mind into dark corners. A kiss on his fingers grounded him further. 

They washed his hair quickly and he was back up in a sitting position breathing hard, shaking, but Sebastian had left to take up his position once more. They did what they could. Stefano kept one eye shut and the other on Sebastian’s reflection. He never left. 

\------------------------

It was another two weeks before the nightmares started up for him. He would wake in the night, sweaty and cold, tangled in his blankets, agony in his eye that threatened to wake the entire house. He was sure that he screamed sometimes, had seen a figure hide when he woke, but the figure was small and he was certain that it was Lily. His dreams were about Union and about every ill that had befallen him there and about before that as well. It was when the thunder outside crashed or something fell over in the house, that the dreams of the war were the worst, but those were few and far between. 

Sometimes he woke to hear Sebastian on the walkie-talkie, asking if he needed to get down there, asking if Stefano was alright. He would tend to talk Sebastian down, promise that everything was alright, and that he’d settle down, there was no need to worry. Other times he woke with Sebastian kneeling on the floor beside him, holding his shoulder and turning him so that he wasn’t on his back, stroking the scars that he’d given himself under Paolo’s care, the ones on his wrists. Sebastian was always there for him. Sometimes he adored it, the constant affection that Sebastian gave him and, at other times, he hated it, knowing that Sebastian could be doing so much more than just being his caregiver. 

Sometimes he woke to find something else on the couch with him. 

“Lily,” he growled as he sat up in the morning light. She was at the table, eating a bowl of cereal. He glared at his sleeping companion, still wrapped in his arms. It was Mount Rory, so named because even though Lily had started to catch up on her growth spurts, the stuffed tiger was larger than she was. “You need to stop leaving your toys everywhere.”

She kept chewing her cereal, nonchalant. “Well, if you didn’t sleep better with him I would keep him in my room. He likes you anyway.”

Stefano sighed. The truth was that he didn’t mind having Mount Rory sleeping with him. He had a motor in his chest that made him purr when he was squeezed and the sound helped relax Stefano greatly. It was the fact that even Lily was taking care of him, that he couldn’t have any peace from their love. It was wrong and he didn’t deserve it and they should have been living their lives without him. 

“Did I wake you?” 

She shrugged, “I wanted some orange juice. I get thirsty in the night, sometimes hungry. I wasn’t asleep anyway.”

He’d noticed that she would wake up in the night and come downstairs. He sometimes heard her at the fridge or the microwave, getting a snack. She was growing. She was healing. She needed to eat a lot. Sebastian wasn’t a great cook but he was better than Stefano had become accustomed to. It only made sense for Lily to sneak snacks. 

“Why are you still sleeping on the couch?” She glared at the offending furniture. 

Stefano swung his legs down and, gripping the armrest with one hand and the tiger with the other, he pulled himself up to his feet. It had been over a month. He sighed. He could walk without reaching for the nearest surface or person, but he was still uncertain about his feet and he tired easily. 

“I haven’t found a job yet,” he explained, making his way to the table. The milk and the cereal were still out but so was a clean bowl and a spoon, waiting for him. He put Mount Rory in Sebastian’s seat and took his own, next to Lily. “I don’t think I’m strong enough for most employers to want.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Lily chewed her cereal with purpose, as if it was taking place of another roll of her eyes. “I meant that my dad has a real big bed and you can make it up the stairs now and I think you’d both sleep better if you weren’t so far away all the time. Sometimes I sleep in my dad’s bed with him and then I don’t have any nightmares at all.”

Stefano gulped, his body rigid. He didn’t think Lily knew what she was talking about, she couldn’t have, nor the implications of what she was suggesting. He couldn’t do that, couldn’t even ask. 

“It wouldn’t be right, Lily. You’re father, he needs his space.”

“You like him, don’t you?” 

He stared at her. He could feel the heat in his cheeks. He didn’t know how to explain this. He didn’t know how to say it was one sided, that, yes, Stefano liked him, but that was completely natural and there was nothing wrong with him and he wasn’t going to thrust himself upon Sebastian when he so obviously needed time, to mourn, to find someone who could help him, who could be better for Lily. 

“It’s okay.” Lily finished eating. “I know Dad likes you too, but he thinks you need time or something. I think he thinks that whatever you two were feeling in that bad place didn’t actually happen and that some of the stuff that he saw was just stuff that he saw. Like he made it real because it was his brain that wanted it to be real.” She didn’t like to refer to Union or Mobius as anything other than The Bad Place. Stefano didn’t fault her for that. 

His mind was racing. None of that had been false. He had stated everything that he had felt, as much as he could in the amount of time they had and with the amount of terror that he had felt. He couldn’t actually imagine Sebastian liking him, not like that. Sure, Sebastian had kissed him, but that had been to make him be himself once more, not out of any actual care. 

“What about...” He didn’t want to say it, he didn’t want to bring her up, not to Lily. He knew that Sebastian had told Lily about what had happened to her mother, but he still didn’t feel like it was his place to talk about her. “What about your mom? He still loves her. I can tell he’s grieving her. I can’t. Not while he’s missing her.”

“He’s not going to stop loving her, not ever,” Lily admitted, “But that doesn’t matter. Mom explained it to me once, this really long stupid explanation about cups full of water and how some people don’t have much water and some have the right amount and my dad has too much so he’s constantly spilling and making a mess so he has to pour his cup into other people’s cups but I think that’s dumb. Dad has too much love and he loves people real easy. When he was with Mom he was also with Uncle Joseph and that was okay, everyone was happy. So I don’t think that he’ll have a problem liking you and Mom at the same time.” 

Stefano blinked. He’d never heard of anything like this that wasn’t adultery. He didn’t think it was something that people could do. Still, if it meant that he had a chance and, according to Lily he had quite a decent one, he would take it. 

\--------------------------

It still took a few weeks for Stefano to think it was a good idea and then it took another week for him to gain the courage for it. Sebastian was watching television with Lily, though it didn’t seem like there was anything on. She was leaning up against him, half asleep. Stefano was in the kitchen, taking care of the dishes from dinner. It was a nice view, to look over and see Sebastian so relaxed, running his fingers through Lily’s hair, nothing wrong, for once, in their lives. He didn’t want to interrupt it but there was something in his chest, threatening to come up through his throat. He had to say it. He’d been trying to figure out how for so long. 

“Sebastian?” he asked, noticing that the show had switched over to commercials, “Might I speak with you a moment?” 

Sebastian craned his neck, looking over the back of the sofa without bothering Lily. Stefano’s eye was trained on the cup in his hand. He didn’t want to see Sebastian’s face right then. He liked Sebastian’s face, relaxed like this, he was so soft and kind and gentle, and the lines in his face were smoothed and there was a small smile to his lips. He was absolutely beautiful like this. 

Sebastian must have caught the ‘in private’ part that Stefano had omitted. “Hey bug,” he whispered, kissing Lily’s forehead, “I’m thinking it’s time for bed.” 

Lily rubbed her eye. She’d been studying all day for her admissions test, trying to see what grade she’d be in once she goes back to school. Life was about to be normal again for them. Stefano didn’t know what normal for them meant for someone like him. She nodded though and slid off the couch, heading over to Stefano. He knelt down before her, ready for whatever request she had. 

“You coming up to my room after?” she asked. 

“Whatever you need, Mia Angela.” he nodded. 

“Good. I wanna show you something.”

“Of course.” He putted her on the head and she smiled groggily before turning and heading up the stairs. 

When he stood he didn’t move, he just stood in place. Sebastian had muted the television and now he was sitting there expectantly, waiting for him. Like the table had been for his first dinner here, the hardwood seemed to stretch for miles. He wanted to cross it, but he knew that he would stumble and fall and he would never get up again. He couldn’t risk it. 

“You okay?” Sebastian asked, looking him over. 

Stefano nodded. He’d never been so bad with words. Right now though, all of the ones that he’d rehearsed had left him, and he didn’t know how to proceed. He took a step and then another. 

“If this is about you leaving, you know you don’t have to, right?” Sebastian had made this point a few times, offering to empty out a storage room off of the garage to renovate it into another bedroom. Stefano had been so certain that he would gain back his independence though, he’d always refused. Noe he was thinking of it, of staying, but he didn’t want his own room. 

He took a few more steps. 

“Sebastian,” he murmured, expecting himself to fall, for the words to not work, for himself to fail. It would be much easier to fail. “I was wondering, if-”

Sebastian was staring at him. The ads had ended and whatever he was watching with Lily was back on in full swing. He shouldn’t have asked. He should have let this all go. His chest felt so very tight. 

“Would you like to go out on a date with me?” It all came back in a rush, in a sprint. 

Sebastian grinned, relaxing the tension that had been growing in his shoulders. “Stefano. I would absolutely love to.”

\---------------------------

All of the good Italian places that Stefano had known were either good or had lowered their quality significantly to match with the desires of the public, primarily by Americanizing their recipes. Stefano had no idea where to take Sebastian then. He knew of a few decent Teryaki places, but those were only places that he’d gone at two in the morning when he’d been in a fit of passion moments before and he had no choice but to eat before collapsing. They weren’t really places for a date. 

He was surprised to find that Sebastian already had a few ideas and that he’d dressed well for them and brushed his hair back and even trimmed the beard that was now a fully functioning beard without his help. Stefano actually felt under-dressed, partially because Sebastian was the one who had purchased the clothes and that they didn’t fit quite right. 

Sebastian wouldn’t give him any hints, though he held his hand while they drove and spoke of mundane things, like movies and books and typical first date stuff. Stefano was out of the loop, had been gone from the world for so long and, a few years before that, his knowledge of the world was from Florence. So the discussion went from topic to topic, from what Sebastian knew to what Stefano knew, and Sebastian smiled and asked questions and learned of the things Stefano remembered from his childhood, even though there were large gaps from what Mobius had erased. 

Just when Stefano was starting to think that Sebastian didn’t actually have a plan and they were just going for a drive, Sebastian turned into the parking lot of what looked like an Open House. Stefano wasn’t sure what to think, that perhaps Sebastian wanted him out of their house after all and this was some magnificent ploy, but the sign in front wasn’t that of a real estate company, even though it looked like one at first glance. It was actually painted instead of photographed. 

Sebastian opened the door for him and took his hand, partially for chivalry but also to cover up any faltering steps Stefano might have. They went into the house together finding it a busy hub of people, all with wine and cheese, a few people in black wandering around with trays. The walls had all been painted in different colors and some of them had been painted as if they were canvases. It was a house, yes, but it was a house that had been purchased and turned into an art piece by a group of students. It seemed that a few rooms had been delegated to each student and they could do what they wanted with them, installing and destroying and connecting rooms with one another. 

It was terrible and it was ingenious. While the art had a long way to go it was absolutely fantastic to see the concepts and the use of the space and the fact that Sebastian had not only found something like this but had considered bringing Stefano along to it. He didn’t let go of Sebastian’s hand, not for anything, even as he spoke to the artists themselves and exchanged information. It wasn’t meant to be a networking opportunity but one of the artists actually remembered his name and some of his photography from years before and it was just too easy for him to fall back into place. 

For a moment, he felt as if he’d never left. 

One of the rooms was musty and old, with tattered curtains against one window. The walls were covered, floor to ceiling, in Polaroids. Sebastian was uneasy about it but, when Stefano pulled him through the door he complied without argument. There were more photographs on the floor, as well as a stack of books next to the couch. There were counters along one side, one of which had a phonograph playing, and more tattered curtains in front of it. 

“Are you alright?” Stefano asked, noting how nervous Sebastian was, looking around the room, pulling the curtains aside to see what was past them. There were only a few people in here and, as they filed out of the room, leaving the two of them in there alone, that nervousness was growing. 

“Bad memories,” Sebastian swallowed, “Old ones though. They’re nothing for you to worry about.”

Stefano brought up one of his hands, the one with the ruined finger, the one not holding onto Sebastian’s, and spread his fingers out over the base of Sebastian’s neck, pulling him down the two inches that he needed. “We can go. Sebastian, we don’t have to do anything that brings that up.”

“You don’t want to go though,” Sebastian had a hand on Stefano’s lower back, but his eyes were still darting around. “I can take it.”

“Sebastian,” he didn’t know why he was repeating his name so many times. It was helping Sebastian cam down though and he lowered his voice, checking to make sure they were alone in the room. “I will make you very uncomfortable. It is in my nature, especially in the case of art, but I will not force you to endure bad memories.”

“What are you going to do about them?” Sebastian licked his lips, his eyes finally falling on Stefano and holding him. 

“I’m going to do my utmost to replace them.” He decided and pushed himself forward to press a kiss to Sebastian’s lips. It was light at first but, when Sebastian responded, not slowly, not hesitantly, but a man who thought he would be left to the dogs, to starve in the cold night, to never see the sun again, he kissed hims harder. He kissed him feverishly and was given the same in turn and he pushed Sebastian back against the couch with the force of it, lips against teeth and their fingers intertwining. 

Stefano had never kissed someone like this before, had never been with someone that he wanted to kiss like this. He could feel himself growing more protective of Sebastian and he knew, without a question, that everything he had said was true. He would try to make whatever bad memories Sebastian was plagued with easier, better, or at least ineffectual. He would make Sebastian uncomfortable, because he was going to create again, but he wanted Sebastian to be there for it. 

Someone coughed and the kiss, the moment, broke. There was a mother of one of the artists in the room and she was looking at all of the photographs with great interest, not looking at either of them. 

“My apologies,” Stefano coughed, finding an urge to straighten out his clothing as he walked past her, his legs feeling weaker than they had before entering the room, following Sebastian back into the hall. 

\-------------------------

“I’m not certain what, exactly, you’re expecting, but I cannot promise that I will be good for you,” Stefano whined, trying to control his voice as Sebastian broke the kiss, pulling away from him slightly. Stefano’s back was against a wall in Sebastian’s room, his dress shirt loose and unbuttoned, his erection painful against his zipper. He’d meant it as a flirtation, that, if Sebastian tried to make him heel, he would snarl, just to see his reaction. 

Sebastian’s eyes were soft though as he traced his fingers along Stefano’s jaw, looking him over. There was a lot of thought behind his eyes, too much, and Stefano wanted him to snap out of it. He’d had to shove a lot of things down in order to get this far and, even then it had been months of him rehearsing how he was going to do this, how he would be with Sebastian and not think of Paolo. 

“All I expect is to have a good time,” Sebastian swallowed and smiled and tried to pretend there was nothing to be frightened of. “You’ll tell me if anything is wrong, right?”

Stefano chuckled, the sound deep and rumbling. He wasn’t sure if he would, but he doubted that being with Sebastian would be anything like what he was used to. Sebastian was kind and attentive and so very comfortable with him. He knew that sex wasn’t supposed to hurt and he knew that Sebastian would do his best not to hurt him, but he also knew that memories sprang up when he least wanted them to. 

“I’ll try,” he promised. 

Sebastian was on him once more, pressing softer kisses to his lips that before, his hands traveling down his front, fingers splaying and encircling his cock to give it a light squeeze. “You’re so beautiful, Stefano.” he trailed those kisses towards his ear, “I’m so lucky.”

Stefano huffed and felt one of Sebastian’s hands leave him and then there was something else pressing against his cock. He opened his eye slightly and gaze down, finding Sebastian’s own cock against his, before Sebastian started to hump against him, softly moaning as he opened his hand to take both of them. It was awkward and dry but Stefano grit his teeth in the pleasure of it all the same. He was glad that Lily was gone for the night. 

He’d taken himself in the bathroom a few times, imagining Sebastian inside of him, how gentle he would be, how he wouldn’t be pinned down or drugged or hurting, and he had always kept his ears pricked for Lily coming down the stairs, for a snack or to check on him. He’d always been too nervous and those fantasies had never been enough to get him off, but he was afraid of what scenarios his mind would produce to actually get him over the edge. 

“Bed?” Sebastian offered and Stefano nodded against him, feeling a sharper tug before Sebastian released him, taking his hand and leading him to the bed. 

A few moments of stripping, of hands fumbling and getting in the way of the others, and they were both nude, their clothes tossed to the floor like the terrible ideas that they were. Stefano lay on his back, legs spread open, knees wider than the rest of him, while Sebastian half lay on top of him, keeping himself propped up on his elbows as he mapped his body with kisses, finding those terrible scars and kissing them as well. 

Sebastian’s cock was between his legs, prodding against his hole. His wrists were at his sides, not moving, not forced into position, but they couldn’t move all the same, as if there were wire ties holding him in place. Sebastian’s weight, his heat, was pleasant against him but he still couldn’t get that feeling off of him, that his ankles were trapped where they lay, that Sebastian was going to shove into him at any moment, ignoring how his body wasn’t ready for it. He could feel that he was losing his erection and hoped that Sebastian wouldn’t notice. He said that he would try to say if something was wrong but nothing was wrong, it was all in his head. Sebastian was going to be so good to him. 

Sebastian pulled away and that weight was off of him and he could move again and his cock was no where near him. He could breathe again. 

“You okay?” Sebastian asked, hands running up Stefano’s sides. 

Stefano’s mouth was dry. There was so much that was wrong. He nodded. He knew that this was going to be alright. He didn’t want to explain that his brain was lying to him about what was about to happen. 

Sebastian wasn’t paying attention to that though, not what he was saying but the tension in his muscles, the strain in his face. He pulled himself to the head of the bed, propping up pillows and laying against them, opening his legs somewhat. “Stefano, will you look at me?”

Stefano sat up from where he’d been laying, drawing his knees up to cover himself, wrapping an arm around them. He felt vulnerable. He knew that was a part of this. He knew that wasn’t a bad thing. He looked over at Sebastian, saw the concern in his eyebrows, a slight smile on his face, understanding. Stefano hadn’t needed to say anything. 

“I want you to sit there and watch me, alright? Can you do that?” Sebastian asked. 

Stefano cocked his head to one side, confused. “Well, yes, I suppose. But I thought you wanted to make love?”

Sebastian’s smile widened even as his cheeks tinted red. “Uh, yeah, yeah, of course I do, but not if you’re not cool with it. Just, watch, okay?”

Stefano nodded. He watched. 

Sebastian took the bottle of lube from the bedside table and slicked his fingers in it, before turning his eyes back on Stefano. His gaze was piercing, his pupils blown, and he snacked his hand down passed his cock, angling his hips so that Stefano could get a better view as he traced his fingers around his hole. Stefano didn’t understand, he’d expected to be the penetrated, thought that was his place in a relationship with someone so much stronger than him, physically. 

Sebastian’s mouth fell open and he struggled to keep his eyes open as he slide a finger inside of himself. His moans were soft and light, airy but consistent. He fucked himself with it, keeping the motions slow but steady, and Stefano licked his lips at the sight of Sebastian’s sensitivity. Stefano had used his fingers like that, but never for show and it had never been so sensual. It had been a means of survival, something that he did in between Paolo’s visits, in an attempt to be better prepared for the next time he was taken. 

Sebastian’s head fell back as he added another finger, added speed. He was still keeping eye contact with Stefano all the while, spreading his fingers, showing off just how slick the lube was, dragging his fingers against his own prostate to illicit higher pitches. 

Stefano shifted, still sitting there but less hidden, getting more comfortable. Sebastian hesitated in his ministrations but, when it was clear that Stefano wasn’t breaking his rules, he got back to work, his free hand raising up to pinch at one of his nipples. Stefano’s cock was hot and heavy on his thigh and Sebastian moaned when he glanced down at it, spreading his legs a bit further. Stefano wasn’t spectacular, his cock more impressive in length than girth, but Sebastian slid a third finger into himself, licking his lips, raising his hand from his chest to his mouth, sliding two of his fingers between them and sucking on them. 

Stefano wrapped a hand around himself, feeling his cock twitch and ache, needing more than just to lay there. Sebastian’s sounds became more lewd as he suckled on his own fingers, rhythmically shoving them deep into his mouth in tandem with the fingers in his mouth. Stefano didn’t jerk himself hard or fast, just enough to get a little relief as he watched, as he wanted. 

“Stefano,” Sebastian whimpered, pulling his fingers out of his mouth, “Please, I...”

Stefano didn’t know what he was supposed to say, what he was supposed to do, but he pulled closer, close enough to touch Sebastian and Sebastian was pulling himself flush with him, climbing into his lap as he pulled his fingers out of himself, and settling into Stefano’s lap. 

It took some oddness, Sebastian’s hands in strange angles and is hips rising and falling as his cock dribbled onto Stefano’s stomach, but then he was gripping Stefano’s erection and leading into him and Stefano’s lip was quaking as his nerves felt ready to burst and he could feel Sebastian’s body stretch and mold to accommodate him. Sebastian slid down against him, head back, mouth open, as he allowed himself to be speared on Stefano’s cock. 

“Fu-uck,” Sebastian groaned and then he was moving, his hands on Stefano’s shoulders as he pulled himself up and settled once more into Stefano’s lap. There was a tightness all around him, within him, a pressure building in his stomach as Sebastian fucked him, slow but deep. He didn’t bother to touch himself, just ride Stefano with a passion that Stefano had never seen before. 

It was so much different from when he’d done this himself, with his own hand. He’d never been inside of someone before. He wanted to curl up and live here, inside of Sebastian, inside of this safety and care and agonizing pleasure. 

Sebastian kept going, picking up the pace, his hands tying knots in Stefano’s shoulders as he whimpered and moaned. 

When Sebastian pulled off Stefano felt like he would shatter, so much tension waiting to burst in his lower gut. Sebastian didn’t go far, just turned around on his hands and knees and collapsed onto his elbows, panting. His hole was so small, even with how loose it now was. 

“Please, Stefano, please, fuck me,” he begged and the tone of his voice, the subservience, sprang a beast within Stefano. 

He got onto his own knees, lined himself up, and slid into Sebastian with a hiss. Once he was nestled inside, all the way, they both exhaled. Being inside of Sebastian, it wasn’t something he’d ever expected, unless it involved blood and pain, a knife and a camera. He pulled out until only the head of his cock was still within him and then slammed forward, knocking Sebastian almost an inch forward. 

“Oh shit!” Sebastian cried out and Stefano didn’t know what he wanted to do, pull out to make sure Sebastian was alright or keep going, “Oh god, please, Stefano, like that.” Sebastian answered his own internal dilemma. He fucked Sebastian hard, as deep as he could, over and over, less time between each thrust until they were sweating and panting and Sebastian’s hand left from supporting him to masturbate while Stefano shoved his face deeper into the sheets. 

“Non meritartelo,” Stefano gritted his teeth, the pressure building. It was like water at a dam and the entire infrastructure was about to topple over, “Non meritare te, Sebastian. Cosi buono con me. Cosi buono per me. Oh cazzo.” 

“Per favor. Oh shit, Stefano. Oh cazzo. Ti amo. Per favor, per favor,” Sebastian’s accent was terrible but the words were tumbling from him and the fact that he was trying so hard, that he was learning, for no other reason than for Stefano, made his heart swell and pushed him closer. “Riempimi, ho bisogno che tu raggiunga l’orgasmo in me.”

Stefano gripped Sebastian’s sides, burying his face into his hair and growled, coming hard into the body beneath him, spilling so much that he had no idea how he’d contained it all. He exhaled, thinking he was almost done, when suddenly Sebastian tightened around him as he gasped and came into his own hand, shaking and drawing out what remaining cum hadn’t been lost inside of him. 

Sebastian simpered and fell onto his belly, pulling Stefano down with him. He reached out, searching for the tissue box on the side table. Stefano grabbed it for him and he cleaned himself off, still spasming from the force of both of their orgasms. Stefano was certain that he was supposed to get off of Sebastian now, that they should clean themselves and feel a great deal of shame, but when he tried to pull away Sebastian grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him back down, back deep inside of him, ignoring both of their hypersensitivities. 

“Are you sure we’re not actually still in there?” Stefano was surprised by how husky his voice was, nuzzling against the nape of Sebastian’s neck. 

Sebastian pulled his head back, twisting uncomfortably to kiss Stefano’s temple. “Yeah, yeah, we’re out. And, if I have any say in the matter, you’re never going back in there.”

Stefano shifted slightly, wincing at the sensitive itch it caused his dick, and kissed Sebastian on the lips. “I just. I can’t believe you’re real.”

Sebastian grinned then and there was something in Stefano’s heart that he never expected to feel.


End file.
